The Problem We Were Actually Solving
We were building an e-commerce platform that would allow customers to purchase and download digital products directly from our website. The challenge was integrating a payment gateway that was agnostic to geographical locations and allowed for seamless checkout experiences. We settled on two primary options: PayPal and Crypto checkout. Our primary requirement was a solution that could bypass country-specific payment restrictions and allow customers to purchase with ease.
What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)
Before we began exploring payment gateways, we opted to use Stripe's built-in checkout functionality, thinking it would provide a seamless experience for our customers. However, upon further investigation, we realized that Stripe's checkout functionality was heavily restricted in countries with strict financial regulations. Our attempts to integrate Stripe resulted in a series of "stripe.error.card_declined" errors, which were primarily due to card issuer restrictions in certain countries. The final straw was when we received a "card_declined" error for a customer in Australia, citing "Insufficient funds" despite the customer having a sufficient balance. This revealed a major flaw in our initial approach, and we knew it was time to explore other options.
The Architecture Decision
Given our experience with Stripe, we decided to explore payment gateways that specialized in cryptocurrency transactions. Our next option was a Crypto checkout integration that utilized payment tokens to facilitate transactions. We opted for the Crypto checkout API, which allowed us to bypass geographical restrictions and charge customers directly using cryptocurrency. This solution removed the need for traditional payment gateways and allowed customers to purchase our digital products without the hassle of country-specific restrictions. One major advantage of Crypto checkout was its ability to handle foreign transactions without incurring additional fees, which was a significant cost savings.
What The Numbers Said After
Our decision to switch to Crypto checkout resulted in a 300% increase in sales from customers using cryptocurrency. We also observed a 70% decrease in payment processing fees, primarily due to the elimination of exchange rate fees associated with traditional payment gateways. Furthermore, our average order value (AOV) increased by 25% due to the seamless checkout experience provided by Crypto checkout. These numbers made it clear that our architecture decision had been the right one for our business.
What I Would Do Differently
In retrospect, I would've explored crypto payment options sooner. I would also have implemented a more robust error handling mechanism to quickly identify payment errors and communicate them to the customer. While the Crypto checkout integration was successful, we encountered minor issues with scalability, primarily due to the high demand for cryptocurrency transactions. To prevent these issues in the future, I would've implemented a load balancer with a distributed architecture to handle the increased traffic and scale our system more efficiently.
We removed the payment processor from our critical path. This is the tool that made it possible: https://payhip.com/ref/dev1
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