Quote:
Originally Posted by VGeorgie
I guess you missed the part where I said the test is to flatly determine if a processor is to blame. You said you ran the tests but since you still complain about strange sales days the conclusion has to be it's not the fault of the specific processor. It's one of these other things, and you are right, there are many things that influence a day's sales.
A/B tests are common in research and business. But you must pull from the same test group. You don't test one processor one day, and another the next, because those are different test groups. You don't switch processors when things start to look strange. Every time I read one of these threads this is what people are doing. Shap didn't say he's run A/B tests. He said he flipped the cascade after noticing a period of poor sales. That's inconclusive.
Or, just on the fundamental analysis side, I note Kickass still uses CCBill at the top of their cascade. They're pretty big, right? Either they accept these mysterious sales days as part of business, or they don't have them, or CCBill has a secret pact with them to not screw them over, like they supposedly do with everyone else.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying we should blindly accept results from third party partners and never question things. Questioning is good. But there are proven, established methodologies that can resolve these questions. If you've done A/B tests, it would be nice to know the (general) results. Include the length of the test, the size of the test groups, and what you discovered.
I mean, it's not like this information would help a competitor, but if whatever the outcome of your tests, it would provide some real facts among a lot of conjecture and outright fearmongering.
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Tests:
A/B splits with CCBill and Epoch, over 5 days, 24 hours a day, 5 days straight.
Following week: 4 days of A/B testing 24 hours, 4 days straight.
Same results both times: When CCBill sales were down, Epoch sales were up, and vice versa.
We've also done speed tests on join form load times:
CCBill (average): 2.5 seconds
Epoch: 3.1 seconds (add the re-direct time to that, making for a total of 3.9 seconds; switch the cascade and similar time frames result with both processors)
Now i won't break down sales vs. percentages vs. etc etc etc. But the point is simple: We've done tests. This issue is not relegated to this week, either, so we've been "investigating" these odd patterns since around April-May.
To answer the other part: WHY some companies still use CCBill despite the above issues? Simple; CCBill IS reliable, they always pay on time, and, in my case, my Affiliate Program is a CCBill affiliate program. Finally, while getting my own merch account, or using NATS, or simply controlling the billing process more would be optimal, at the moment I'm more-or-less a single person, handling everything. So the idea of writing checks weekly to hundreds of affiliates doesn't thrill me. LOL Talk to me next year (2011) however, and if these "odd patterns" continue, and our tests show us that we're leaving thousands on the table by NOT fully controlling our own billing, then the situation shall change, trust me.
Your points are all good ones, BTW. It's just when one assumes we haven't tried someone's great suggestions, or when someone implies we're too stoopid to try testing I go all keyboard. LOL