More Statistics in Mollie
Better insights into your online payments
At Mollie we have always been passionate about making clever payment products that are easy to use, simple to implement, and flexible enough to be used by everyone. We wanted to add even more value for merchants who want to stay on top of their business’ performance, without the need to invest in custom accounting software. That’s why we’ve launched a new version of Statistics.
Better insights, better business
Having great insights into sales and payment data gives merchants a competitive edge. Whether it’s finding out customers’ preferred payment methods or reliably documenting year-over-year returns, data helps to streamline businesses and increase returns. Our goal at Mollie is not just to provide merchants and businesses with better payments, but to deliver an overall better business experience. That’s why we have spent the last couple of months updating, expanding, and improving the statistics available and to create the lightweight Google Analytics for online payments, right in the Dashboard that’s already available to all our customers.
The old Transactions
The old Transactions page had some large drawbacks. The list of transactions was combined with a diagram that didn’t correspond with the filters set for that list of transactions. Although the diagram did give a great overview of the progress of a business, it didn’t provide any deeper possibilities for analysis, even though it took up a large part of the screen. In essence, these components served different purposes. To solve the issue of these dual purposes we decided to give the transactions their own page and create a new feature dedicated entirely to statistics.
“Merchants who have less volume, or who are unwilling or unable to commit to a custom integration with an accounting cloud service found the new Statistics to add great value.”
The new Statistics
Designwise we experimented with a new way of navigating time periods. The centred buttons let you choose the date range: single days, weeks, months, quarters, years, or a custom range. Below these buttons, a scrolling navigation bar lets you cycle through these periods. If you choose to enter a custom date range, the scrolling navigation bar disappears and you can enter your desired dates in the boxes to the right. It might be a date navigation you haven’t seen before, but we expect everyone to intuitively find their way around it.
The graph has been changed from a bar diagram to a more descriptive line graph. It will automatically show statistics for your selected time period and always adds the corresponding previous time period. Now you’ll be able to see data like year-over-year growth at a single glance.
As an extension to the Transactions page, you’ll also find a table with transaction details below the diagram. This list corresponds with the time periods of the diagram, giving you even more data.
Feedback from early adopters
Throughout the production process we gathered feedback from early adopters, which gave us many great insights. The feedback we got on our new time period navigation was promising. It was found intuitive and easy to use. The feedback on our decision to extract statistics from the Transactions page was positive as well. Transactions is one of the most frequently used features of our Dashboard, and is now available in a more condensed and clear version.
The feedback also allowed us to find out which of our customers would get the most value out of this new feature. As it turns out, many of the high volume merchants that tested Statistics in beta rely solely on Mollie for processing their online payments. When it comes to gathering data and insights they use specialised and custom accounting tools. Merchants who have less volume, or who are unwilling or unable to commit to a custom integration with an accounting cloud service, found the new Statistics to add great value. In fact, one of our Support colleagues gave early access to one of our merchants when he contacted us to ask where in the Dashboard he could find his monthly revenue. His response: “This is exactly what I was looking for!”
Technical stack
We built the new Statistics using React. Our developers love working with React for its component model, hot module reloading, inline JSX templates, and overall great developer experience. To fast-track the development we used multiple packages. When deciding which packages to use, we look for proven technology which is supported by large companies because it’s essential that the packages we use are well maintained. To determine whether they are, we also look at open and resolved GitHub issues. Another necessity is that the package is modular. We really try to push the boundaries of what is visually possible and we need packages that allow for that. For this project we used, among others, the Recharts chart library from Alibaba, the React dates datepicker component from Airbnb, and React virtualized. The data is served from a very fast ElasticSearch cluster. All these technologies meshed perfectly with our current stack and allow us to render the stats and diagrams extremely fast.
Use cases
So how will Statistics help your business forward? The new Transactions feature will give you all the payment details you need without a graph taking up most of your screen. Here you’ll easily find things like the status of a particular payment and you’ll be able to issue refunds. The Statistics page will give you a helicopter view of the health of your business. You’ll be able to gather widespread insights and data on how your business is developing. The new date selection controls allow you to the easily zoom in on a specific period for clear overviews of periodical returns, and find data that you can use for easy year-over-year, or any other kind of analyses.
Next steps
We will continue to improve our Dashboard and its features like Statistics. If you already work with Mollie and are interested in co-creation, do contact us. We love to get feedback on our products and learn more about how we can make you succeed with your online business, so don’t hesitate to tell us what you think.
If you already have an account you can check out the new Statistics.
Or you can sign up at our website, or find us on Twitter.
