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Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

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Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#131

Post by rconti »

pc wrote: post #127
charlesju wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations. We've recently decided to go with Paypal Pro for better rates on micropayments. Do you guys plan to have a similar program soon?

Yeah, we don't like the current situation, and this is a topic of ongoing discussion. Credit card network fees make it tricky to do it well but we really want to find a way to make it work.

Can you elaborate like I'm 5? Just very high level for those of us who only know "they charge a flat fee and a percent which makes microtransactions hard".

What are the strategies/thoughts in the industry? Holding and batching payments on a per-user basis? Trying to get agreements so you can batch payments on a per-processor or per-network agreement? Hourly? Daily? Weekly?

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#133

Post by rconti »

I think I've tried to use Stripe stores with ApplePay and discounts, and it never works. A couple local breweries, a coffee roaster, and another place I ordered car parts from. As soon as you enter a coupon code, the ApplePay option goes away. I am trying to remember why, I want to say, the ApplePay option shows up BEFORE the checkout page where you enter coupon codes, then once you enter a code you can no longer ApplePay. Anyone else notice this?

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#134

Post by pc »

rconti wrote: post #131
pc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we don't like the current situation, and this is a topic of ongoing discussion. Credit card network fees make it tricky to do it well but we really want to find a way to make it work.

Can you elaborate like I'm 5? Just very high level for those of us who only know "they charge a flat fee and a percent which makes microtransactions hard". What are the strategies/thoughts in the industry? Holding and batching payments on a per-user basis? Trying to get agreements so you can batch payments on a per-processor or per-network agreement? Hourly? Daily? Weekly?

> Just very high level for those of us who only know "they charge a flat fee and a percent which makes microtransactions hard".

That's pretty much the story :-). And so the questions are then whether we subsidize the transactions, batch them (as you say, though that makes refunds and statement descriptors tricky), get card networks to change their policies, or somehow shift how the payments are made (e.g. encouraging cheaper payment methods).

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#135

Post by asdfadsfgfdda »

core-questions wrote: post #83
malandrew wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this idolization of small over large (or vice versa for others). The thing that matters most is that businesses best satisfy their customers, whether they are small or large. There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company. I buy from small companies all the time and many of those that I do will likely survive because the…

> There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company. Sure there is - in terms of where the profit goes. The profit in a small business goes to the owner(s), who usually live somewhere in the local community, and in turn that money stays within the community to be spent on other businesses there. When a Walmart comes along, the profits all mov…

By that logic, car dealerships in America are a positive because they keep profits locally. In reality, they just increase prices to consumers and limit competition through lobbying.

The cost advantage from Walmart is not just in logistics, it is specialization of labor, superior negotiating power against suppliers, and diversification of geographic risk. A small business will be less efficient and give up more profits to suppliers.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#136

Post by plantain »

pc wrote: post #75

Stripe cofounder here. This isn't really new -- it's an extension of our last round ( https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/fintech-start-up-stripe-notc... ). That said, we've seen a big spike in signups over the past few weeks. If any HN readers have integrated recently and have feedback, we're always eager to hear it. Feel free to email me at patrick@stripe.com and I'll route to the right team(s). As always, thank you to…

My top issues running my business on Stripe:

1) Many countries still only allow depositing a single currency (i.e. Aus/AUD), doubling the cost of transaction due to the currency conversion, even tripling when we have to convert it back to pay our bills. I always get told either "soon", or "not possible due to the law", despite competitors doing it.

2) If we were an EU company, we'd get charged 1.4%+25c on transactions in the EU, where most of our customers are. Instead, because we're selling from Australia, we get charged 2.9% for some arbitrary reason. This coupled with 1) puts our all-in transaction fees at 5%+ :(

3) I think billing the vendor for refund fees is a really retrograde step - it increases friction in the decision for us when a customer asks for a refund, and industry wide is going to cause less happy customers and less card users online. It's already hard enough convincing Dutch/German customers to use a credit card online.

If any non-EU companies know a cheaper way to process transactions in the EU, I'm all ears...

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#137

Post by adamwathan »

huhtenberg wrote: post #94
fbelzile wrote: post #55

I'm very happy with Stripe and for their success, but I plan on switching all my payments to go through PayPal again. I did some math and PayPal offers a better deal for Canadian businesses after Stripe bumps me off of their grandfathered conversion fees in a couple months. I love the slick interface, but it's simply not worth the thousands per year I'll be saving with the switch. For me the main selling point for an…

Stripe not allowing to withdraw onto USD accounts not located in the US is an absolutely MASSIVE gripe with the service. We operate internally in USD - we sell in USD, we pay in USD, so we end up being shafted with not one, but two pointless FX conversions. And that's without going into minor stuff like the headaches with refunds done at rates, extra accounting overheads, etc.

Is this country-specific perhaps? I'm in Canada and it's no problem for me to withdraw USD to a Canadian-based USD account.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#139

Post by GVRV »

bskinny129 wrote: post #113
pc wrote: post #75

Stripe cofounder here. This isn't really new -- it's an extension of our last round ( https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/fintech-start-up-stripe-notc... ). That said, we've seen a big spike in signups over the past few weeks. If any HN readers have integrated recently and have feedback, we're always eager to hear it. Feel free to email me at patrick@stripe.com and I'll route to the right team(s). As always, thank you to…

I've been using Stripe for several years and love it. Switching to payment intents this year was seamless. One thing I'd love you guys to do is create your own QuickBooks connection app. Most companies offer their own - yours is through Sush.io with your logo and bad ratings. I can't get it to work and I'm not the only one.

I'm not at Stripe but would be keen to work on this as a side-project. Would you be willing to be user #1? If so, please ping me (email in profile). Thanks!

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#140

Post by kingbirdy »

jcrben wrote: post #130
pc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we don't like the current situation, and this is a topic of ongoing discussion. Credit card network fees make it tricky to do it well but we really want to find a way to make it work.

Wish you could disintermediate credit card fees. I'm sort of hopeful that credit card surcharging might grow ( https://www.cardx.com/ ) and start competition on those costs.

I don't have strong feelings either way on having consumers pay CC processing fees, but encouraging them to use debit cards online seems irresponsible given the non-existent fraud protections on debit cards. Of course it's technically consumers' responsibility to know and trade off that risk versus the savings, but at least in the US the sad reality is that personal finance education is woefully lacking or non-existent for most people and they don't know the difference.
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