Checkout: add currency selector

[designsimply]

Raised by @breezyskies

It been a while since we last talked about it, so I wanted to reopen the discussion about currency selection in checkout (and make sure it stays on our radar, especially now that we're sending more users through Calypso checkout thanks to domain search).

Here's an early design concept, based on the popover component:

One big question that comes up -- should we show all currencies, or just the most common ones? Or most likely ones based on IP and other info?

We'll also revisit making pricing formats consistent, which was never resolved.

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[Aurorum]

@designsimply Do you think that this could be reopened? (this is the closest issue which I could find on allowing currency selection - let me know if there's another!)

Currency changes are a hugely significant percentage of threads in the WordPress.com forums. It'd be nice if there was a way to change the currency for a purchase without having to ask a staff member specifically to make that change (feedback specifically from this thread, though no doubt there's more).

Almost fifty pages of threads from this search, so it'd be nice if this was reopened.

[davipontesblog]

Added to the Checkout board for triaging. Could this be considered for the new checkout flow? We often need to support users with this since it's a product gap at the moment, they can't change their currency on their account with us, so Happiness Engineers have to do this for them.

Example: #19355481-hc Chat tags for volume of interactions: #account_currency

[kriskarkoski]

I was recently reviewing tickets from free users tagged as being billing-related and this was a common request among those.

[davipontesblog]

I was recently reviewing tickets from free users tagged as being billing-related and this was a common request among those.

@cathymcbride this is a very common request in localized forums too, users need our help to change their account currency, and it's a blocker for paid conversions. It would be super nice if people could do this on their own while at checkout, and not have to engage with support to be able to do that. Who knows how many conversions we miss out on with people who don't reach out to support.

[DavidRothstein]

Something very similar to this was my Automattic trial project back in 2018: https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/22033

I got relatively far into implementing it, and some of the supporting work for it was deployed. But we didn't deploy the final feature in the end; it turned out to be complicated technically, and there were various other reasons too. See also pbBQWj-7W-p2#comment-486 (internal link) and links therein.

Certainly from a technical perspective it would be a lot easier to allow users to change their overall account-level currency, rather than for a specific purchase during checkout. (And that matches what happiness engineers do for them anyway.) But there are still some complications; they would need to understand the new prices they'd be paying for any existing subscriptions they already have, since changing currencies necessarily means changing prices.

I am also wondering whether there are any themes in the reasons that people request currency changes after their account is already created? Moving from one country to another is an obvious one, but I'm wondering if there are other reasons (like a misidentified country/currency in the first place?) that we're aware of and that could be separately addressed.

[michaeldcain]

Given @DavidRothstein's response above, the technical complexity in supporting this feature, and the discussion on the linked P2 post, I'm going to close this ticket as wontfix unless there are objections. If we identify bugs that could be causing these requests "like a misidentified country/currency in the first place", let's open a new issue to address those.

@davipontesblog @kriskarkoski: would it be possible to find out more from users when these requests are made?

[kriskarkoski]

@michaeldcain I think the ability to change currency is the underlying issue. It doesn't have to happen in checkout especially as a v1, it can be under Me somewhere. Based on what we looked at last week I think we're talking upper double digit plus requests per month so I don't want to have no issue tracking this.

Can we reopen this or open new issue summarizing the volume we're looking at but being more generalized to adding an option for this somewhere make sense, then you or someone else can share what information you'd like us to collect from users so we can better understand the causes for needing to change this (inaccurately set initially, change of location, card requires a specific currency, etc.)?

[davipontesblog]

Second to what @kriskarkoski said, I would like to confirm that this is an account level change, not a "per transaction" one. It seems like @DavidRothstein mentioned that in this context it might be a doable change?

[Aurorum]

Forgive me if I'm wrong here because I'm unable to view the thread, but from my time helping in the Forums, my understanding is that WP.com staff would be able to change an account's currency on request of that user. It seems reasonable and easier to shift that ability away from staff to the user. I'm not aware if there were any circumstances where a request to change currency was denied, but if there are, those could be blocked off.

I agree that this should at least be tracked though - it's a very common request in the Forums.

[kriskarkoski]

But there are still some complications; they would need to understand the new prices they'd be paying for any existing subscriptions they already have, since changing currencies necessarily means changing prices.

I'm not sure we communicate this consistently now and I couldn't find documentation about how to communicate it, just that it happens, so making it user-facing might also lead to more consistency since we could ensure any warnings we want are agreed by the user before changing.

[cathymcbride]

@michaeldcain I think these count as objections. :) I'm going to reopen the issue so the conversation can continue.

Can you or @DavidRothstein comment on implementing this as an account level change, as opposed to a "per transaction" change?

[michaeldcain]

@cathymcbride: can do. This requires some internal discussion around pricing, so I'll create a P2 post and leave a comment here.

[davipontesblog]

If we identify bugs that could be causing these requests "like a misidentified country/currency in the first place", let's open a new issue to address those.

@michaeldcain I am interested in following this rabbit hole here :) I am quite intrigued by what might be the reasons why so many Brazilians need their currency changed to BRL from USD... I wonder what triggers a set currency to each account - do you know anything about that? I do wonder if this is getting broken at the inception of the account. If I could get some help with how that is supposed to happen, I can take some examples and chase down to see if I can find out what's happening.

[michaeldcain]

I am quite intrigued by what might be the reasons why so many Brazilians need their currency changed to BRL from USD

@davipontesblog thanks for bringing this back up. It's helpful to know that many of the requests come from Brazil. We use a different payment processor for BRL, so changing to USD would switch to Stripe. We could possibly look at transaction success rates between the two processors. Are there any other high request volume currencies? The initial HC link in this issue doesn't seem to deal with currencies at all.

As far as where/how the currency is set, I believe that it's done by IP location that is usually detected at the logged-out landing/home page. Both locale and currency are set when the user's account is created. There is additional geo detection at later payments-related requests, but I believe currency isn't changed with those.

[davipontesblog]

If you have a P2 I can link these to, I can work with the Portuguese support team to get some examples we can dig into - they are all requests to change from USD to BRL, so the accounts are getting set as USD by mistake, somehow, likely at account inception.

[michaeldcain]

Oh sorry, I misread the switch. USD > BRL makes even more sense, since I don't believe that Stripe has traditionally accepted Brazilian cards. This definitely seems like an issue that could be happening earlier with account setup. I haven't created a P2 post yet - I'll try to get to it this weekend.

[carinapilar]

I can work with the Portuguese support team to get some examples we can dig into - they are all requests to change from USD to BRL, so the accounts are getting set as USD by mistake, somehow, likely at account inception.

I got a case today, with a 2-weeks old account, shared here: p6WmIP-Kr-p2#comment-1677

[DavidRothstein]

Note that a followup post where this is being discussed is at pNPgK-5fw-p2

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