4 ms·

I know additional anecdotes aren't worth much, and I'm a very small fish, but the addition of the email address and the "remember me" checkbox was an unpleasant

by teach 13y ago

I know additional anecdotes aren't worth much, and I'm a very small fish, but the addition of the email address and the "remember me" checkbox was an unpleasant surprise for me as well and seems to have increased confusion/uncertainty for my customers. I'm the author of "Learn Java the Hard Way". My customers aren't interested in a "relationship" with me or my site. They just want my PDF. Since you implemented this change, 1) my total sales are down and 2) the fraction of users buying with PayPal instead of Stripe has increased. My 'N' is pretty small, so I can't with confidence say the thing is statistically significant, but it's something I have noticed. I would VERY MUCH like the option to hide both the "email address" prompt and the "remember me" checkbox.

pc 13y ago
Hm, could you email me? patrick@stripe.com. I suspect that this is an anomaly, as you say (almost all small samples will randomly skew in one direction or another), and our data strongly suggests and testing suggests that this increases sales -- but if you're right, not only will we add the option to hide it, but we'll proactively do it ourselves.
- natemcguire 13y ago
  So, I as a user see the remember me option ONCE, and it's only the first time I check out with stripe, right? Then in theory I go to some other site and it increases conversion on site b because it pre-fills my saved CC info, etc. It seems plausible that change will increase conversion on the second site, but as appears to be the case anecdotally, the change can decrease conversions on the first site. Seems like this could be painful for a site with one-time sales. Could it instead be a dialogue that pops up with clear stripe branding that asks if you want to remember the card for future visits on the web and explains what it is? We roll our own stripe forms, so this hasn't caused us any issues. Knew that checkout was not something we would use for this reason.
  - sroussey 13y ago
    The important thing to see, I think, is that the gains will come not on the first day this rolled out, but over time. One tiny merchant on a single day as the only data point is a sad sample to base decisions on. Particularly for said tiny merchant. Their pick up in sales will not happen immediately, but with time. Removing the "Remember Me" in freakout mode will likely be just shooting themselves in the foot, in a very short term way. But then again, even big companies only worry about the next quarter's financials, and the government so longer invests in infrastructure, so I guess this is the new normal.
    - teach 13y ago
      I'm not talking about a change in a single day. The change in question happened in late December, so I do have SOME data. If I lose sales for two years and then EVENTUALLY get a bump, that's two years of network effects and word-of-mouth that I've missed out on.

by teach 13y ago

pc 13y ago

Hm, could you email me? patrick@stripe.com. I suspect that this is an anomaly, as you say (almost all small samples will randomly skew in one direction or another), and our data strongly suggests and testing suggests that this increases sales -- but if you're right, not only will we add the option to hide it, but we'll proactively do it ourselves.

natemcguire 13y ago
So, I as a user see the remember me option ONCE, and it's only the first time I check out with stripe, right? Then in theory I go to some other site and it increases conversion on site b because it pre-fills my saved CC info, etc. It seems plausible that change will increase conversion on the second site, but as appears to be the case anecdotally, the change can decrease conversions on the first site. Seems like this could be painful for a site with one-time sales. Could it instead be a dialogue that pops up with clear stripe branding that asks if you want to remember the card for future visits on the web and explains what it is? We roll our own stripe forms, so this hasn't caused us any issues. Knew that checkout was not something we would use for this reason.
- sroussey 13y ago
  The important thing to see, I think, is that the gains will come not on the first day this rolled out, but over time. One tiny merchant on a single day as the only data point is a sad sample to base decisions on. Particularly for said tiny merchant. Their pick up in sales will not happen immediately, but with time. Removing the "Remember Me" in freakout mode will likely be just shooting themselves in the foot, in a very short term way. But then again, even big companies only worry about the next quarter's financials, and the government so longer invests in infrastructure, so I guess this is the new normal.
  - teach 13y ago
    I'm not talking about a change in a single day. The change in question happened in late December, so I do have SOME data. If I lose sales for two years and then EVENTUALLY get a bump, that's two years of network effects and word-of-mouth that I've missed out on.