Assess options for showing available payment types on first step / express checkout

[rachelhbd]

We would like to improve the UX of our AK donation pages for Paypal donors, and if possible do so in a way that we can add other express checkout options in future!

Example AK page: https://act.350.org/donate/test_donate/ Example AB page with express checkout: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jun-22-em-us-climate-disasters-redirect/

Current issues:

• Donors can't see supported payment methods on step 1 (note these vary inside and outside US- outside US we only accept Mastercard, Visa and Paypal; in US we also accept Amex and other cards - there is some customisation to show the right logos on step 3)
• Paypal donors are required to enter postal address on step 2 and other unnecessary fields for making a Paypal donation
• The types of payment we accept is quite limited (although it may take more time/compliance work to add new checkout options, we want to start exploring the technical possibilities here and test out with Paypal)

For scoping:

• What alternative/express checkout options can AK support that could be low or medium effort? For Paypal and/or other checkout types
• What is the feasibility of showing different options based on donor location?
• Are there any options that could be implementable in September, and what would we need in place to support the dev work on this?

[sukhada]

@rachelhbd I just stepped through the example ActBlue link that you shared and it looks like for Paypal users, ActBlue asks for the mailing address after stepping through the donation on Paypal:

It looks like my donation doesn't go through until I fill this form out.

Is the mailing address necessary for disclosure reasons? If so, it seems like it might actually be fine for the mailing address fields to be included on the form, although it might make sense to move them to the post-Paypal donation step?

re: express checkout options, I reached out to AK support for more info about what they support. They mentioned that QuickDonate is now deprecated, and FastAction allows for HTML/CSS customization. They seemed like they're keen to work with us to see if we'd be interested in joining the FastAction beta. Would it be worth meeting with them to get a demo/get more of a sense of the feature?

[rachelhbd]

hmm, you're right thanks @sukhada perhaps we will need to do more research on the various options there. Let me also look for any examples that don't require an address for Paypal outside of Paypal (sure I've seen it!) I see it's also the same with google pay on ActBlue - you skip to Gpay, it does an active card check, and then it asks for postal address.

On our current donate forms, you also don't have to enter postal address in Paypal, so users are entering a similar amount of info as for AB's version, but it at least feels faster as you go straight to Paypal with ActBlue's form and there are fewer steps in total.

I'm not 100% sure we want to explore FastAction at the moment because it sounded in the very early stages of development, but it could be worth scheduling a call - let me chat with @jaseinvt about this

I also wanted to loop in @cjmabry here as this connects with the Google API/Apple Pay item mentioned here: https://github.com/350org/ak_intl_v3/issues/370#issuecomment-121235914

These Gpay and Paypal buttons were what I was calling "express checkout", but I might not be using the right terms here, what would you folks call these?:

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[rachelhbd]

Moving this one to Oct as it'll require deeper scoping

[rachelhbd]

We agreed with the fundraising team to nudge this one into Q2 at this point. I'm curious to revisit in 2023 and breaking out to look at:

• Adding a "payment type" option on step 1
• Adding Gpay
• Moving the Paypal selection to step one and/or updating the Paypal user journey
• Looking again at FastAction
• Assessing possible other payment types that are popular in other regions