[coldtea]

>That fancy CC form will NOT sell a single thing. It will however stop people from paying.

Citation needed.

>It does nothing to convert.

Beside the point. Any other credit card form I've seen does nothing to convert either -- and it's not it's job: by the time I'm entering my credit card details, I'm already "converted".

Most of the objections are dead simple to fix (tab order, 1password), and address nothing inherently wrong with the core idea.

[jamieb]

Hi. My team is responsible for the checkout process at a large company. I won't give exact numbers, but more than $100m goes through our teams two pages.

>by the time I'm entering my credit card details, I'm already "converted".

Our numbers say otherwise. Optimization of our checkout page is a huge deal any change, even text, comes under scrutiny, and for good (i.e. measurable) reason.

Would I put this demo on our page? If the bugs and confusion can be fixed, I might try it for a very small test group and see what happens. Not sure the confusion can be fixed though.

[MiguelHudnandez]

> by the time I'm entering my credit card details, I'm already "converted".

No, when you finish entering your credit card information, you're "converted."

I have been ready to purchase but abandoned orders because I was doing multiple things. By the time I remembered to go back, I didn't feel as strong a compulsion to purchase the product. In some of these cases, if checking out were easier, I would've been done and I wouldn't have felt strongly enough to cancel the order.

Shitty forms cost you money even when it's the last form you have your users fill out.

[jasonlotito]

> Citation needed.

Unfortunately, I've never published anything to any official standard. I can only go by my experience. That experience involves transactions north of $100M.

> Any other credit card form I've seen does nothing to convert either -- and it's not it's job

Perhaps I worded it poorly. However, a CC form's job is to convert a potential customer into a paying customer. Just because you've entered your CC details does not make you a paying customer. You'd be surprised as the number of people who do enter information, and then never actually complete the transaction. It it's a recordable amount.

In the end, a credit card form that creates friction will cost sales. The more friction, the less sales. The amount of problems with this setup will stop sales from going through, even if just the bugs are fixed.

> Most of the objections are dead simple to fix

They aren't objections as much as they are a report of what is wrong. Consider them a list of problems that need to be addressed.

> and address nothing inherently wrong with the core idea.

Correct, the idea is fine, and should be explored. Keep in mind, this isn't the first time I've seen someone use a credit card layout as a form. The CVV on the back is new, but than I'm going to say that's a bad idea the way it's implemented.

Anyways, I already replied to the author of the form, and made it clear I'm not arguing against his attempt. Hell, I applaud him. I just wanted to share my experience because that is what's needed.

[dubcanada]

Being a little less "blunt" may help a bit. I generally don't start my criticism off with "So..." followed by a list of everything that is wrong with it and then a "THIS WON'T CONVERT" in caps.

I think more likely the reason is people with "north of $100M" in transactions are scared to try something new on their form. When there form clearly works fine as it is. But that doesn't mean exploring new methods is a bad idea. I know a lot of people who are still unsure of what a CVV is. And having a replication of their credit card so they know exactly what goes where would work very well.

Anyways just my 2c's

[jasonlotito]

I was trying to be clear. Judging by the OP's response, I think I was successful. But agreed, I could have avoided the So… part. There was really didn't mean anything by that part. Mea culpa.

> I think more likely the reason is people with "north of $100M" in transactions are scared to try something new on their form. When there form clearly works fine as it is.

That's actually far from the truth, at least in my experience. You are constantly looking at how to improve the experience at every level. Between the amount of time a person spends entering in each field, to the errors they get back, and even where the person lives. Everything is scrutinized. Not everything matters, but you keep looking.

> I know a lot of people who are still unsure of what a CVV is.

Yep. And there are ways you can go about resolving that. Hiding the field from the start is a bad idea. There is nothing to suggest that you couldn't also display the back of the credit card below the front.

The most important thing you can do when designing something like this is get real feedback and data. Just because it looks nice doesn't mean it will help.

[jalfresi]

>>That fancy CC form will NOT sell a single thing. It will however stop people from paying. >Citation needed.

I'm getting pretty tired of this attitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for healthy skepticism, but if you can't grasp the basic understanding that the biggest hurdle to conversion is friction in the purchasing process then your in the wrong business mate.

This isn't rocket science.

[coldtea]

>I'm getting pretty tired of this attitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for healthy skepticism, but if you can't grasp the basic understanding that the biggest hurdle to conversion is friction in the purchasing process then your in the wrong business mate.

The "biggest hurdle to conversion is friction in the purchasing process". We're talking about the "enter credit card details" stage here. Which is hardly the "biggest hurdle to conversion" -- it's where conversion has mostly already been made.

You first need (a) a decent product, (b) to present it nicely on the web page, (c) good copy, (d) appropritate calls to action, (e) a pricing strategy, (f) to get the customer to decide to buy. Only then the "friction in the purchasing process" (with respect to entering credit card details) comes into play. At the very last stage of conversion.

But that's beside the point.

In my question I didn't specifically doubt that the "biggest hurdle to conversion is friction in the purchasing process".

I merely asked the parent to qualify why he thinks this specific form will "stop people for paying".