
Show HN: We built a simple way to accept payments through Stripe - nick007
https://gethelium.com/?ref=hn
======
aiurtourist
The payment UI looks unfamiliar and slightly confusing.

    
    
       https://gethelium.com/static/images/sales/overlay.png
    

* Why are the labels _inside_ the input field? It's surprising when you can edit _some_ text in a well but not all of it.

* Why is my email address under billing?

* Why is the CVC field on a different row?

* Email, name, and street address fields will contain long data. Neither my street address or email address will probably fit in there.

* Why is the year only two digits? Y2K led me to believe two-digit years means accidental ICBM lanches.

Also, I spent fifteen seconds wondering why I couldn't flip the switches
underneath "Effortless for everyone" on <https://gethelium.com/>. I even tried
dragging the switch nub left and right.

I hope this helps. This looks like a really useful service. I'd love to look
at the integration documentation (if there is any).

~~~
zaidf
_Why is my email address under billing?_

Does it really matter much? It seems like a logical-enough section to place
that field under. I can't think of use-cases where a user would be confused
about this unless the company using this tool has primed them to think in
certain way about Billing. For example, a company that says "we will never
email you billing information" can have its users confused. But that is a made
up use-case that is uncommon at best.

 _Why is the CVC field on a different row?_

Again, your question makes it sound like there is a well-accepted standard
that it should be on the same row. As an online shopper, I am used to finding
the CVC field under the CC field and it has never bothered me.

 _Why is the year only two digits? Y2K led me to believe two-digit years means
accidental ICBM lanches._

That could be because most credit cards list two digits instead of four. And
if you have made a payment over phone, it is standard to say something like
"0614"(instead of June 2014) when asked for expiration.

~~~
adrianpike
Just curious - When you mentioned payment over phone, do you mean via SMS? I'm
not familiar with that 4-digit MMYY pattern, I've always been prompted for
month & year as separate fields.

~~~
zaidf
I meant payment over a phone call when the rep asks "what's the expiration on
your card?" and I go "0814" etc.

~~~
adrianpike
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying. :)

------
ChrisNorstrom
You're asking me to connect my stripe account to your site, and give you 2% of
my money and you won't even give me your first name? All of your info is
anonymized and your domain who.is don't have real contact info, nor your Quora
or twitter accounts...

I immediately thought you were a scammer.

<rant>

You know what pisses me off the most about a site like this? Where is your
contact info? Demo? Screenshots? Samples? Names? Email? About? Who the hell
are you? You provide no names, no contact info, just an overly minimal site
that links to another even less informative site with no names. And I see this
so often that it infuriates me. It breaks the basic most fundamental rule of
the web which is, Trust and Authenticity. AKA Credibility.

<http://who.is/whois/freshplum.com> Even your WHO.IS info for your domain is
anonymous. The only idea I have that you're not a scammer is that your HN
account nick007 is 1000+ days old. And your first name _might_ be nick and you
might be a part of Ycombinator's summer 2011 class. Your clients aren't going
to play the clicking game like I just did to try to find out if you're a
scammer or not.

<https://twitter.com/freshplum>: Here's your twitter, again no names.

<http://www.quora.com/Freshplum>: And your Quora, again no names. Just "a
pricing company".

I know I'm comming off as an asshole critic (the kind HN needs less of) but,
WTF man. I had to dig your names out from the bottom of your press release.
The one document on all your sites that actually tells me something.

Who is spreading this philosophy of 1 page anonymous sites that ask you for
credentials?

Here's a one page website I made. <http://www.timeforzen.com>. All it does is
stream free creative commons songs. I'm not even selling anything and I still
have an about page and contact info.

</rant>

(Also for those of you who are saying 5% is too high, don't forget ebay and
amazon fees add up to 11%-20%. Amazon is so expensive that I can't afford to
sell my calendars on its site. And Gumroad allows you to sell links to digital
content by charging 5% as well. So it's normal.)

~~~
Sam_Odio
Hi Chris -

I'm sorry you feel this way. I agree that HN needs less vitriol like this, but
I can understand where you're coming from.

Expect an 'about page' at some point in the near future. In the meantime here
are a few links that might help you learn more about the company, the team,
and the product (I found most of them by googling "Freshplum" and
"gethelium"):

* <https://angel.co/freshplum>

* <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/freshplum>

* <http://www.linkedin.com/search/fpsearch?keywords=freshplum>

* [http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/01/freshplum-launches-...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/01/freshplum-launches-helium-a-simple-way-for-anyone-to-create-their-own-shopping-cart/)

* [http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/freshplum-goes-after-small-...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/freshplum-goes-after-small-businesses-with-a-dead-simple-stripe-enabled-shopping-cart/)

* Demo: <http://sam.odio.com/2012/10/31/buy-me-beer/>

* [http://allthingsd.com/20110621/sam-odio-i-left-facebook-to-r...](http://allthingsd.com/20110621/sam-odio-i-left-facebook-to-rejoin-y-combinator-with-a-new-start-up-video/)

And, if there's any more information you'd like before signing up, there's
always email. Our addresses are in our profiles.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Now that I've calmed down, I have to say I'm so sorry for my rude rant. I
don't know what triggered it but honestly my heart rate literally increased
when I saw you didn't have a single name, a single email address, no contact
info at all on GetHelium. I've never been that passionately angry before over
a website. Maybe I'm overly-obsessed and need a break from design. Maybe I
lost my life-savings to a con artist in a former life, I don't know.

I signed up and was about to connect my Stripe account when I realized it. I
felt like I was being played. Who were these guys? Are they for real? Can I
trust them? I automatically assumed I could because their site's on HN and got
upvoted. And a flood of hormones and emotions came in, I felt weak, powerless
to judge, unable to trust, unable to ask, confused, angry. All such negative
emotions caused by a website without contact info.

Contact info is my #1 pet peeve in all of designdom.

You don't even need a seperate about page, just a picture of you guys at the
bottom in the footer, with your names and email addresses.

Credibility and trust is more important than Usability, Pricing, Design, and
everything else. NOTHING is more important. That's why so many sites have
pictures of the owner, its workers, testimonials, links to Tech Crunch and the
New York Times articles about them. Anything to build trust and say, "We're
not going to run off with your money."

\- Bad design is forgivable, you might not have had the time or budget. Lots
of sites with terrible design still get money and customers.

\- Bad UI is also forgivable, you might have bad taste. Lots of websites with
terrible and confusing UI still sell, solve problems, and make money.

\- Hiding contact info while asking for money has no excuse. It's deceptive.
It's something thieves do. So credibility is the #1 most important thing.

------
jcc80
A few comments are making an issue of the pricing (2% + Stripe's 2.9%) saying
it's too high. It's not too high. If the product does it's job and makes it
dead simple for the end user it might even be too low. As mentioned by someone
else, the HN crowd likely isn't the target audience.

Fast Spring, which did 44.5 million in rev in 2011, charges 5.9% plus $.95 or
8.9% flat per order (user chooses which). Granted, Fast Spring may be more of
a total ecommerce solution, but the point isn't +2%. It's who is the end user
and how much easier does this product make their life/business.

~~~
michaelbuddy
The opinion of it being too high, is a perfectly respectable opinion given
that there are free and one-time fee wordpress plugins that handle this
integration.

------
dkokelley
Here's a question about Helium. The premise is that for 2% any site could be
made an eCommerce store, making total transaction fees around 5% for a dead-
simple solution. This is great for anyone without the technical knowledge or
desire to code their own solution in. What happens when the site gets
successful? At what point is it worth it for the site owner to pay someone to
build a more cost-effective solution? 2% for $1,000/month is only $20, but if
the site gets much larger, you lose a customer.

I guess the strange fact is that the more successful your clients are, the
more likely they are to leave. How will Helium deal with this?

~~~
Sam_Odio
We're developing a suite of "enterprise" e-commerce tools under the Freshplum
brand, so presumably we'd up-sell the retailer to those.

------
d2vid
I really like the clouds in front of the airship! The movement is very subtle,
which gives the design a refined feeling. Totally the kind of detail that
could be overdone and become distracting, but I think you guys nailed it.

------
aptimpropriety
Curious - as someone totally ignorant to the nuances of Stripe - why doesn't
Stripe offer a very simple, OOB checkout solution?

What would prevent them from doing so, which in theory could be a nice
additional revenue stream for them (stealing [a part of] your 2% away)?

~~~
chank
I think this is very risky since stripe could easily put them out of business
by providing the same thing and for no additional cost.

~~~
lnanek2
Honestly, this feels like the sort of thing they were putting in contract work
anyway, and just decided to change into a service since they had it anyway...

------
alexmic
I've been following you guys for a while, and really love your sense of
design.

As for the product, is this a direct competitor to Gumroad?

------
mrchess
I don't understand why you need to charge with pricing-per-transaction. This
seems like something you'd pay monthly for, no? I'd be curious to know why you
decided not to do a subscription plan.

------
fumar
I run my lady's dog treat site. Arrfscarf.com

We have been trying to find a great solution for web ordering. We sell doggie
ice cream. We currently sell retail in Chicago. Have a couple of stores in New
York that are interested in carrying our product.

We want a simple solution for our online ordering. First, we need to test and
see if people are willing to order dog ice cream online.

This looks like a good solution for us to try. I will implement this later
today. I will likely give some feedback.

------
rohamg
very cool.. the Odio family always up to big things :) love the simplicity +
the design + the use-case. releasing this as a wordpress plugin would be
killer - the entire shopping cart space is very muggle-unfriendly. that said,
you're going to have to do _alot_ of volume to make 2% worth your time -
payments are coolest when tied to a marketplace, but your diff advantage is to
not be a marketplace. you're going to have a tough time recouping the $$
you'll have to spend to gain the mass-market mindshare you'd want to drive
that kind of volume. at the same time if the business turns out to be the bees
knees, big guys will be quick to copy and out-spend you in marketing, while
small guys (eg ribbon, gumroad) can quickly add "embedding" as a feature. i
love the product (and the name!!), it's just a tough slog to "be the next
PayPal" these days. quick feedback: your "effortless for everyone" is
exceptionally well done, i would move it above the more standard 3 column
descriptors.

~~~
rohamg
i just saw freshplum- if you did helium as a way to <ahem> get freshplum into
the air and with quick notoriety.. then i take back everything about being the
next paypal - you did exactly the right thing. also i agree with others -
bundle your pricing and state one clear %.

------
Sam_Odio
We believe Helium's target audience isn't the HN community, but it'd be good
to get your thoughts about it anyways.

It's basically an easy way to add a shopping cart and check-out flow to a
website. Think of the small business that's not tech-savvy but wants to sell a
few products (or a service) on their site.

Design was by Michael Yuan, the same designer that designed Divvyshot.

~~~
jacquesm
It looks really nice! Does this position itself in the same space as google
checkout was in?

------
adanto6840
Can I ask what you guys are using for the mouse-based signature feature? Is it
something off the shelf or did you guys write it yourself?

FWIW, I think it is potentially a very viable product if you can find and
effectively market to the proper niche (which obviously is not the HN crowd).
Good luck!

~~~
nick007
It uses the HTML5 canvas element... there's not that much too it actually.
We're still playing around with it to see how to best use it.

------
orangethirty
You need to state your pricing structure clearly. Saying that you charge 2%
over what Stripe charges makes it seem like you are hiding the total cost of
transactions. Using Helium would cost people 4.5% plus 25 cents, am I right?

I also see that you are testing the response from HN. Well done. But the
landing page for HN and regular visitors are the same. Why not run some quick
tests with all the traffic?

You might have branding issues with the project Blimp (getblimp.com). The
founders are really cool guys, but do chat with them about it.

The design is top-notch, though a button or link that scrolls down to the area
with more information should be tested. Right now, the first impression you
get is that this is an empty landing page.

A demo would also be nice.

~~~
Sam_Odio
Regarding pricing: We talked about the wording internally. It was decided that
different people pay different stripe fees (eg volume discounts) and stripe
may change their fees in the future w/o notice, so it's best to simply state
what we charge. I've added a link to Stripe's pricing page to make things a
little more clear.

Regarding the demo: we're planning on adding one to the home page. Until then
I added the button to my blog: <http://sam.odio.com/2012/10/31/buy-me-beer/>

~~~
graue
I'd be loath to put my credit card info there since it's on an HTTP (not
HTTPS) page. How is this remotely secure?

~~~
nick007
The page itself is loaded via HTTP, but all credit card information is
transferred to Stripe & Helium via HTTPS. Again, with Helium, no payment
information actually needs to hit your servers (Sam's blog, in this case).

------
callmeed
I have something similar going at <https://www.bngal.com>

Your homepage design is definitely better but it would be really nice to see a
demo, screenshots, or a video somewhere.

Also, do you think you'll have problems with integration once you go beyond
_hackers who know how to paste embed code into their site_?

~~~
bflesch
I like how your page tries to answer all questions of the potential customer
right on the frontpage. First a clear value proposition, then some features,
then the target customer ("where can I find myself?") and a short Q/A at the
bottom.

May I ask how you created the responsive design for this page (fluid layout +
mobile navbar)? I noticed some backbone.js in the script code, but I have no
clue in how far you have used a CSS framework like e.g. Twitter Bootstrap.

~~~
callmeed
All the responsive stuff just comes from twitter bootstrap.

Backbone is used when creating a page–mainly because we have certain
attributes and form fields that only apply to certain pages.

------
chank
So is your target customer is very small transaction web sellers? Because 4.9%
+ 30c per transaction is extremely high. That's 2.9% + 30c from stripe and 2%
from you.

<https://stripe.com/us/help/pricing>

If you're selling in any kind of volume, something like shopify would be a no
brainer over this.

~~~
lftl
I would definitely consider capping the pricing structure. Something like 2%
of the first $10k transasctions, and 0.5% thereafter. That or just have an
introductory tier that's based on % of transactions, and higher level tiers
that are monthly fees. The percentage fee is very attractive for small
merchants who just want to try something out, but obviously loses its upside
if your experiment works out.

~~~
michaelbuddy
good idea and encourages the seller to hustle. ;)

------
marknutter
This is going to sound snarky, but isn't Stripe a simple way to accept
payments through Stripe?

------
steffanwilliams
A little like <https://spacebox.io/> too.

------
madoublet
It seems like a good idea, but I think 2% additional per transaction is a
tough sell.

~~~
Sam_Odio
Agreed, 2% likely isn't end state and we plan on searching in the space below
it.

It's easier to drop the price (or give volume discounts) than raise it.

------
robot
About freshplum: "We bring the decision-making power of data science to
businesses that sell goods and services electronically."

This is a long sentence. How about "We bring powerful data analytics to online
sales"?

------
excid3
Is there a demo anywhere?

~~~
Sam_Odio
We're planning to add a demo to the home page. Until then I created a demo on
my blog: <http://sam.odio.com/2012/10/31/buy-me-beer/>

~~~
excid3
Exactly what I was looking for, thanks! This looks great.

~~~
muratmutlu
That's a really nice demo!

------
davidkatz
Here's something I need which I would pay 2% for right now - the ability to
email someone an invoice. I'm stuck with PayPal, which I hate.

~~~
zrail
Interestingly enough, I'm just finishing up an email invoicing system that I'm
planning on open sourcing. It integrates the Stripe button and can be hosted
on Heroku.

I'll shoot you an email when it's up on github if you're interested.

~~~
gavinbaker
I'd be interested. Could you email me too?

~~~
zrail
Will do!

------
theIV
Design-wise, it looks fantastic. Can I ask why there is absolutely no branding
on the login page (or the TOS)?

------
mbmccormick
Nice job! Are there plans to support mobile browsers? Works great on iPad, but
not iPhone at the moment.

------
zancler
Far too much like spacebox.io for me.

------
prezjordan
Beautifully presented, wow.

------
neerajdotname2
Do sellers need to have an account with Stripe ?

How do you handle chargebacks ?

------
alpb
Homepage seems like not tested in IE 9-10

------
iaskwhy
That page is just beautiful. Well done.

