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Matt Edmundson: . Hello, my name is Edmundson and you are listening to the eCommerce Podcast. Yes, you are. Now, I've been an ecommerce since 2002, and these days I partner with ecommerce brands to help them grow scale, and finally exit. And if you'd like to know more about how that works, and if we could work together, head over to our website, eCommerce podcast.net, where you will find.

All of that information now today I am joined. By the wonderful Frank Ano, the CEO and founder of Revolv3, a payment optimization platform, which is based in Laguna Beach of all places. 'cause if you're gonna base a company, why not base it in Laguna Beach? Uh, we're tackling what I think is a massive, hidden problem for subscription businesses.

Involuntary churn. Now we're gonna learn what this phrase means, but it's the thing, you know, that sort of painful [00:01:00] situation where your loyal customers aren't actually choosing to leave, but they just can't pay you because of some payment processing glitch. Uh, and you know what? I wonder if we realize just how much money this is costing subscription commerce.

Now, most merchants I speak to, we sort of seem to have the hope for the best strategy. You know, when it comes to payment providers, we pick one and we just hope it's gonna work. Uh, but Frank has actually built his own solution after years of frustration. With existing systems that couldn't minimize false declines or even maximize payment approvals before founding Revolve.

Three. He spent over 20 years as an executive at Ingram, uh, Ingram Micro and Experian, which probably means he knows your credit score. Uh, and now he's on a mission to reshape the recurring payment market. Frank, welcome to the show. Let's jump into it. What. What was it that kickstarted this? What made you realize that [00:02:00] payment processing, uh, was such a critical issue for subscription businesses and why weren't the existing problems, uh, existing solutions fixing it, I guess?

Frank Arellano: Yeah, great question Matt. Thank you so much for having me on the show. So honored to be here. Love everything that you guys have done. Um, so I longtime ecommerce person, right? And I, I consider myself super sort of savvy with respect to payments, um, until I actually got into Experian. Yeah. Um, and just to give you some perspective, I ran business operations there for their consumer business.

Um, lots of subscriptions, right? Yeah. But a lot of churn related to it. Now you could say, well, you know, probably a lot of insufficient funds perhaps. Um, consumers with credit issues or things like that, but as we dove into it, it was a lot more nuanced than that, right? So a couple things to consider. Um, on average 10 to 14% of ecommerce orders decline.

Yep. Here's the crazy [00:03:00] thing. About two thirds of those declines are what the industry calls false declines. Oh wow. So those are valid transactions that should have been approved. Um, if you wanna put that in perspective, last year, 2024, that was $600 billion worth of transactions. So, and that was just on my website,

Matt Edmundson: Frank,

Frank Arellano: probably.

Um, um, so it was interesting when I got to Experian and looking through the churn and yeah, we wanted to do. Get better at the voluntary side, right? Do we have the right offers in place? Um, is it, you know, a value to the customers and that sort of thing. But a large majority of those, of that churn issue was related to that involuntary side and the majority of it on the payment side.

Um, so hired some management professional payments people in, had them show me all of the data, the decline codes. We did a bunch of analysis. And we weren't effectively managing that, right? We had right, tried to [00:04:00] implement a Dunning solution, which is just, you know, maybe brute force trying to retry those transactions that they declined that was not effective.

Lots of different things, and ended up ultimately building our own bespoke system to help manage and optimize it. Now here, here's a bit of secret around this stuff, the quality of data. That you pass in, that transaction matters significantly. Payments is a, is uh, built on a game of trust, right? Yeah. So the issuing bank has to trust that that consumer is buying that product and that region for that price point, um, to approve that transaction.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

Frank Arellano: And there's a lot of different, um, parts of that. Um, ecosystem, right? You got the merchant, they're using some sort of platform, typically going through a payment gateway, then to the acquirer and processor through the networks, to the issuing bank. Everybody has a different set of fraud rules along the way.

Matt Edmundson: Yep. Right?

Frank Arellano: Um, and, and so there's a lots of different steps in where that can go [00:05:00] wrong. Um, we found that. Owning all of that transaction throughout, um, and establishing that trust with that issuing bank significantly improved our numbers. And also having raw response code data from those issuers to know how to optimize.

Everybody has different error, uh uh, or decline codes or things like that, and knowing what that actually means and how to process that, that transaction.

Matt Edmundson: So does that mean then, Frank, if I'm listening, if I'm getting this right and, and, and help me understand one of the big problems that we have with our payments then, and I mean, these stats are, are horrific in the sense that it's 10 to 14% of our transactions will get declined.

Um, it's not because of insufficient funds. I've, I, I must have had two or three declines this week on a card, which I know is fine, right. For whatever reason, uh, my, uh, Monzo card wasn't working. Um. So that creates annoyance. Do I keep going or do I [00:06:00] do something else? Is, you know, is another question that totally amounts to $600 billion in lost revenue.

So two thirds of the declines are because of what you call false declines. Now is this, because there are too many, too many wheels that are trying to turn, there's too many people involved too. There's that phrase, isn't there too many cooks spoil the broth kind of thing. Um. Is that what is happening? I mean, you know your system aside, but is, am I hearing that right?

This is predominantly what you were having experience. You've got three or four people in that daisy chain all with different thoughts, all with different ideas, all with different codes, all with different fraud mechanisms, and at some 0.1 of those goes wrong and so it gets declined.

Frank Arellano: Yeah, there there's a number of different things that can go wrong, right?

So. Um, everybody in the business wants to protect against fraud, right? So there's a lot of sort of pre-auth sort of stuff that

Matt Edmundson: mm-hmm.

Frank Arellano: We utilize to make sure that we're, we're protecting the [00:07:00] consumer. Right. Um, that stuff is great. Um, um, sometimes too much of that data. Can, can cause a little bit of concern, right?

So we wanna be careful around that. Um, but everything, uh, in that transaction matters. So how the transaction is coded, um, what token are you using? Um, what MCC code is the merchant configured for? I. All of that informs us on what data is required, who the issuing bank is on, what data is required in order to get that transaction approved.

I wish it was as simple as every issuing bank thinks about it in the same way and has the same fraud rules. Right? That's not the case. It's an imperfect science. So knowing what. Matt's buying a subscription, um, streaming service, and he wants to pay monthly and he's using a Chase card. How does, what does Chase need to know about Matt and this product and this service to feel comfortable in improving that?

You can spend years analyzing data and trying to [00:08:00] figure that out. And you can get incremental lift for sure. But that's expensive, right? Yeah. Um, and what we've done is sort of built that platform in place. That uses AI and lots of data and fraud rule input and decline code input from the issuing banks to figure out what the best, um, data package to send to get that approval.

Matt Edmundson: So it sounds it, and this is why I, I, I, I think it's what we said right at the start, the sort of the, the hope for the best strategy, right? Because all of a sudden you've opened Pandora's Box. It's got really complicated in many ways. Um, at least for people like me that maybe don't know about your service or, or I'm using a different service, I'm like, actually, I've got enough trouble thinking about the changes to the meta algorithm.

And now actually what I'm hearing you say is actually, you should really focus on this as well because this is affecting 10, 15% of your sales. Right? So, um. [00:09:00] It, it, it, it feels like it's kind of getting complicated quick. Um, if that makes sense. Um, I dunno if it is, I dunno if I'm maybe a little bit too afraid of, of, of the problem.

Um, but I, I, I, am I the only one that sort of feels that way or is this the, a common thing that most people feel like when they're faced with this problem?

Frank Arellano: Yeah, I would say, and, and I talked to lots of companies out there, I would say that there's a significant amount that don't un don't have enough insight to know that there's a problem, right?

Or, or, um, and once they identify the problem, like how to fix it or solve it sort of thing. And, and I did not, right? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, running a very large sort of enterprise, I had no idea this hidden sort of issue that was going on and, and, um, you know, hired some. Um, people that can help me sort of understand what that is, but more importantly, how do I sort of solve this issue?

And it was fairly significant. [00:10:00] Um, uh, one company I was at, um, our, well, we used to use a metric called effective collection rate. Okay? So this is exclusive of the, um, voluntary return side of things, right? Customers that are on our platform. That are still active and signed up, how much of those dollars are we collecting versus what they're, what was owed?

And we call that effective collection rate. Right. We were kind of low, mid sixties.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, wow. Which is

Frank Arellano: not very good.

Matt Edmundson: No.

Frank Arellano: Um, fast forward, having gone through this sort of payment analysis, resolving the issue, um, that was like 98, 90 9% once we've identified it and solved it sort of thing. Right. That is a significant gain.

On a current customer base, right? No new marketing.

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.

Frank Arellano: Um, no new offers presented, just solving a payment problem, um, on the backend. So it, it can be super effective. Um, on average, our revolve customers improve their, uh, uh, approval rates by about [00:11:00] 14%. Some, some businesses are higher, particularly those that are.

Sort of in the digital goods or high risks, um, sort of spaces.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Frank Arellano: Um, lower for large enterprises that already have sort of robust systems in place. Um, but we've got one customer doing multi-billion dollars and they're getting 5.8% lift on their approvals.

Matt Edmundson: That's a lot of money. $10

Frank Arellano: million a month of net new revenue by solving this type of problem.

Right? Yeah. So it, it is impactful. Um, and I definitely encourage all of your ecommerce, um, folks to, you know, at least check it out and get informed.

Matt Edmundson: Well, I guess that this leads nicely to my next question, uh, Frank. Um. Before I, before I ask that question, lemme just take a little minute to mention about cohort.

Now, if you dunno what cohort is this is, it's the new version of cohort. Actually, you may have, if you're a long time listener. There was an old version. Now there's a new version of cohort. Uh, cohort is where we have [00:12:00] monthly, I. Get togethers on Zoom. So we just get together, shoot the breeze, talk about ecommerce, what's working, what's not working.

Uh, we've got a cohort in the a NZ region or a NZ region, as I would like to say, uh, we've got a brand new UK cohort starting as well. So if you'd like to come join that. Um, like I say, it's free, it's pretty easy. We just go on Zoom. We'll just chat. Great to meet you. Great to talk about ecommerce. So if you wanna know more about that, head over to eCommerce podcast.net.

Now, Frank, my, uh, question for you. Is how, is there a difference between what I would call straight ecommerce, right, and subscription recurring revenue with churn? Or is it it, it doesn't really matter actually whether you are straight ecommerce or whether you are doing subscription commerce. You've got the same problem.

Frank Arellano: Yeah, anything that, what we call credential on file, right? Where you're having to store, um, a payment [00:13:00] type or payment method. Yeah. Um, significant value there. Whether they're one-time payments or recurring payments, it doesn't matter. We all know there's a difference between retail approvals, right? You got your card, you're physically there, you're swiping it or tapping it.

Those approval rates are significantly higher, although there is sort of declines there.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Frank Arellano: Um, it's much different than online, right? So anytime there's an online order is where we can effectively help, um, you know, manage that integrity and, you know, create the highest approval rate possible.

Matt Edmundson: Tell you.

So it's pretty similar then whether you are straight ecommerce or whether you are membership recurring. Where does things like, um, apple Pay and Google Pay, where do they impact this? Do they make it better? Do they make it worse? Do they not really have any difference? Like if I've got, you know, a, a Shopify site and it's got, you know, pay by Apple, um, rather than putting your credit card details, which is obviously becoming more and more popular.[00:14:00]

Um, certainly for me 'cause I'm lazy, right? And so, um. Does that make a difference?

Frank Arellano: It's the same results. I mean, if think about what a di a digital wallet is, right? You're just storing those credentials in that wallet. Um, and, and the digital wallets are, are significantly rising, right?

Matt Edmundson: Hmm.

Frank Arellano: I, I saw a world pays a global payment report, uh, which came out this week, talked about the rise and the use of digital wallets.

Um, but that's just effectively just a card that's stored there that's being used. So whether you put your Chase card there. Um, you use your Apple Wallet or Apple Pay to sort of tap, um, I'm still taking that Chase issuing card mm-hmm. Running that, um, account through, you know, a processor and such. So the rules don't change that or help that in any way.

Matt Edmundson: So they, I, which, that surprised me a little bit because obviously with um, uh, apple Pay. There's the whole biometric thing isn't there? You've gotta do your face ID or scan your [00:15:00] thumbprint for Apple to go, yes, this can actually be taken. There's sort of, I mean, going back to your original comment about trust, there's that where I would've thought there was more trust in the system by doing that versus just putting in a random credit card number.

Frank Arellano: Yeah, the fraudsters know that they can get the cred, the credit card number and the expiration date and even the CVV in some cases. Right.

Matt Edmundson: Mm.

Frank Arellano: Load that into an Apple wallet. That doesn't mean it's an auto approval. Right, right. I still, Matt's credentials. I take a photo of your card without you looking. I save that in my Apple wallet, um, and then I, you know, fly somewhere else and try to buy a product.

I mean, that's still, you know, a fraudulent order that the bank wants to, um,

Matt Edmundson: to find out. Yeah. I didn't even think of that as a, as I didn't, wouldn't have entered my mind. Uh, but now I've got a new hobby for when I go on holiday. Let photograph as many cards as we'd like. So, uh, what you are talking about then, Frank, obviously you, [00:16:00] you've got your own technology, um, which I, you know, is, is, is, is I'm sure is wonderful.

I don't personally use it. I, but I not out of. Choice is just 'cause I've, I've really just found out about it recently, but, so, um, you've got your technology out there. What other options do we have for our e-com businesses? What, let's take, um, let's do this in chunks. Let's talk about SMEs. Let's talk about a guy who's running e-com business turning over half a million a year, maybe a million.

Um, what can they do? Because obviously they've not got the budgets to go and employ the, uh, the, uh, you know, very clever people, which you employed when you're Experian. Um. So what? What's good for them? Do they go to companies like yours do? Are there other things that they should think about first?

Frank Arellano: Yeah, and that's effectively what we've built with Revolve is if you think about us, we're sort of this payments platform that does orchestration optimization.

We're connected to all of the major payment processors [00:17:00] out there. Um, but we also bring a, a wealth of industry knowledge that's kind of built in that platform, right? Mm-hmm. So the, the whole goal with Revolve was to kind of replace those deep payment experts that you had to hire, um, and, you know, build it within a platform.

Um, so that, um, certainly large enterprises benefit, right? We, we have a lot of those types of customers, um, but really make it available for those SMBs and those mid-market type of companies, which is why we built a lot of. Plugins to like Salesforce, commerce Cloud, a lot of those ecommerce platforms that are out out there, our Shopify plugin is and worked on, gonna be launched soon.

Um, but that allows you to sort of utilize, revolve with just a selection in your configuration. Mm. And then start processing and, uh, the level of sort of analytics we ha we have behind all the metrics that we're talking about. Right. To see how effective. Um, your businesses and managing those, uh, those sort of [00:18:00] declines and that sort of thing.

Um, but also get a lot of insight to what others may be doing in other industries like you as well.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, that's fair. So you, you, uh, you actually cater to all markets, don't you? Then it's, it doesn't matter how big or small you are, it's just gonna, it's gonna be helpful to get, to get somebody like you involved to help with.

The declines or is it a case of, I mean, I, I'm, I'm actually thinking out loud here, Frank. I, what I can't tell you may be embarrassingly slow actually. Um, I'm sure I could figure it out in the next 20 minutes if I was really inclined to do so. I can't tell you off the top of my head on our e-comm sites, what our.

Decline rate is for payments. And actually, I think I probably, I'm not the only one, but I probably should not, I mean, you're laughing at me, which is fair play. You know, I think I probably should know this, um, number. Um. What's the tipping point? So let's say I have for whatever reason, a, a low decline, right?

Uh, [00:19:00] like two, 3%. Should I, should I go? Well, okay, I'm okay with that. That's kind of it is what it is. Um, at, at what point on that percentage scale is the tipping point?

Frank Arellano: I think if you are in, um, and it, it all depends on the type of business that it is, right? So it, it'll vary significantly.

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.

Frank Arellano: Um, super high risk businesses with a 20% decline rate is probably about normal super low risk businesses with a 15 to 10% is probably about normal, but is there still opportunity there?

The, the key is to eliminate the, the false declines, right? You want the real declines are okay. Whether that's, you know, uh, a fraud fraudulent order, perhaps, um, an insufficient funds. I mean, there's not much you can do with that, right? If they've maxed out their card or something like that. Um, but there, there's usually always an opportunity, even if your, [00:20:00] uh, approval rates are fairly decent.

But I, I do encourage you to know what your approval rates are. Right. So,

Matt Edmundson: yeah. Yeah. I, I'm gonna find out. Yeah. I was laughing.

Frank Arellano: Not at you, but that is very common. Mm-hmm. Um, we, I've gone into large companies, you know, talking to heads of ecommerce, and I'm like, what, what's your effective, um, approval rate?

Or how much do you pay for processing? And I get the, I don't know. But I'll look into it, you know, sort of thing. Yeah. And those things should matter to you, right? As you have, and

Matt Edmundson: it's interesting that they, um, uh, that you say that because. They should. And I, I'm, listen, I'm talking to you now going, I should really know these numbers and, and you know, I coach people for crying out loud.

I, I, I partner with other e-comm businesses in some, so I, I should probably know these things and in the back of my head I do. Right. But I, I think I'm probably a bit like. We mentioned before we started recording that you went to Sub Sumit last year I was at Sub Submit. You're going this year? I'm going this year.

Um, so if you're gonna sub Sumit, by the way, dear listener, come [00:21:00] say how's, it's both me and Frank. We'd love to meet you. Um, and I'm sort of, I. I'm aware that you've, you've, you've created this, um, this dichotomy between involuntary churn and voluntary churn, right? And so voluntary churn is things that, that I guess I can control on my website, right?

So, um, I can look at the value of the offering. I can look at those kind of things. And, and, and, you know, this is where the customer is voluntarily choosing to stop its subscription. Um. I can look at the reasons why and the psychology and the offer and the value and all that sort of stuff, and try and work on that, which they cover really well at Subs Summit.

Yeah. And you mentioned involuntary churn is. Is sort of a less identified problem and a less talked about problem. And I guess I'm thinking that most ecommerce entrepreneurs like me are very aware of the voluntary, the, the voluntary things, right? Why people aren't buying. We focus on that [00:22:00] optimization rates and all that sort of stuff.

We rarely think about. And maybe everyone listening to the show shows going, Matt, shut up. It's just you mate. Um, but I, I don't think it would be, but we, we rarely look at these involuntary things and I wonder why that is.

Frank Arellano: I think, yeah. I mean, it's great, right? There's a lot of focus on that and, um, you know, uh, like you talked about, right?

Is the, is the value there? Mm-hmm. What's the onboarding experience like, is, you know, um. I, I, I was in the same, um, had the same problem for years, right? Where that's where my focus was. Um, I used to think about payment declines or failures is just all insufficient funds and, you know, the, those customers just naturally churn out.

You know, it is what it is, was kind of my common theme to dealing with that. Yeah. And, but there, there's, there's a significant amount of customer service [00:23:00] potential, right? Because if you turn someone out and they get a notification that they can no longer use your product, but yet they want to use their product, that's a very frustrating thing, right?

Yeah. Um, for them. Um, so we've seen our customers, um, success, success metrics go up. Mm-hmm. Um, also, um, in, in dealing with this, right? So there's a lot of other, um, adjacent sort of metrics that can be. Um, enhanced with, you know, solving these sort of payment related, um, issues that are going on.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it?

Because you're, I dunno if you've, um, come across the sub platform, um, great platform there again, they were at, uh, sub Summit, um, last year. Uh, great guys that worked there, you know, and. They have just released a, a, a study, their sub comprehensive 2025 study saying the subscription price has virtually no correlation with churn rates.

Um, the correlation coefficient of average order value from churn rate is actually [00:24:00] insignificant. What truly drives retention on the involuntary side, according to the research, is perceived value, experience, and product relevance. And I'm guessing when it comes to the involuntary issues like payment issues, I.

What you are doing is you are damaging, I suppose, the customer experience out of those three things. That's what you are hitting, isn't it? It's like, it's a really, really negative customer experience and I, I'm sure there's some interest in psychology around this because I, I know that when I go to a website, it declines my card.

I'm like, what's wrong with you? I know there's money on the card. I'm not blaming me, I'm not blaming the bank. I'm blaming your website for some bizarre reason, even though I understand the technology behind it.

Frank Arellano: Well, and, and there's a lot, so banks are super concerned about this, right? 'cause there, there's a term called top of wallet.

Mm-hmm. And they know what happens. And I was just in New York, um, uh, in, in January, which I don't encourage everybody to go to New York and.

I was there. I [00:25:00] stopped to buy a bottle of water at a bodega, swipe my Chase card, tapped it. It got declined. Uh, my wife and I share the same account, right? Mm-hmm. So she's getting notifications on her phone going, are you purchasing this from some random name? And she's declining it. Like, Nope, not me, not me, sort of thing.

So ultimately you declined. What did I do? I put that in the middle of my wallet. I took out my wells card. It approved and that's, that's now still on the top of my wallet. Like it's literally right here. Right.

Matt Edmundson: It's fascinating. There's a big concern

Frank Arellano: and yes, I was upset that I was being declined 'cause it was me.

It's, you know. Mm-hmm. Simple bottle of water.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. That's fascinating. And I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I mean, I, I don't carry a wallet anymore, Frank, I have to be honest with you. But you can order the cards in your digital wallet. Yeah, same thing, right? Yeah. Um, top of wallet. It's like, uh, the, the cards at the bottom of my list.

I don't even know what me, just check. Actually, I'm gonna open up, uh, apple [00:26:00] Pay. So my Monzo card is definitely at the top, right at the bottom, is now my American Express, uh, which I rarely use. You know, I use it a 10th of what I used to use it as. Um, for whatever reason. And I, I find this quite, uh, quite fascinating because American Express is making a lot less money out of me these days.

I'm surprised they've not called me and gone. Is everything okay? You know, are we, are we still friends?

Frank Arellano: Yeah. It's, it, it's a real issue. I had a, um, I won't name the subscription that I had. Um. And I had a card that was stored there with them, you know, loved the service subscription. But I got a note, a nasty note saying your service is being stopped because the card is declined.

And it was just the expiration date, right? Yeah. Which told me as a payments person, that they're not subscribing to the account update. Right? Which would've updated that. So with their credential on file order, um. I didn't have time, you know, to sort of go and update and [00:27:00] stuff like that, so I used another service.

Right. Mm. Sort of thing. Um, and that, that's a real sort of issue for a lot of merchants out there. So, um, there's, there's a lot of different things that you can do. I. As a business, as an ecommerce business to ensure that, um, all of those customers that you have with payment methods, um, you know, are you updating those accounts on a regular basis?

Are you using some level of optimization to deal with these sort of decline issues out there? Is it cost effective? You know, there's a lot of front end fraud strategy that you want to do as an ecommerce organization that, you know, compliments sort of what we do, chargeback management, all of that sort of stuff.

But that, that whole view around managing those payments needs to be comprehensive. That would be my first advice.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. I mean, yes. There's no other way to, to sort of talk about it really. I, I think you're totally right and I, I, it's such a critical part of our business. I mean, fundamentally, I have to take the money off you before I be, you know, for the [00:28:00] sale to occur.

Um, and so it, it's such an important, I just as a random curiosity, I, I, as you were talking there, I. Um, every credit card I've got, every debit card I've got has got an expiration date on it, right? It expires at, in one year, two years, three years or whatever, which in some respects never really made sense to me.

And I, I wonder if do, are we gonna keep them, do you think? Are we gonna get rid of them? Do they serve a purpose other than, you know, I get a new card every three years. I'm, I'm, they seem a little bit pointless to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Frank Arellano: That's a really good question. I've never really thought about it in that way and we're, we're not an issuer, right?

So I can't speak to sort of why Chase is still requiring it. Um, I think the Apple card, right? Doesn't that not have an expiration date now? I think they may be the only card out there. There's, could be others. I, I don't know. And, um. So I agree with you though, there's probably not a tremendous amount of value, particularly since all of the issuers are doing [00:29:00] account updates, right?

Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. And, and most of the card usage is, um, e-comm related, right? Yeah. So probably less reason why to keep it going forward, but that, that's a great question for them.

Matt Edmundson: Well, it's how you, how do you, if you're, if I'm a credit card issue, I'm like, well, how do I stop somebody putting a new credit card in when this one expires?

Or I'll just take the expiry date off. Uh, but then I, like I say, it's just a random thought that occurred into my head. Yeah, good question. Uh, if I'm honest with you, um, Frank, whilst we're here, let me, let me do this thing. Well, whilst I remember I've, I, I like to ask my guests for a question, right. And, uh.

This is where you're gonna ask me a question. I'm gonna take that question and I'll answer it on social media. So if you're listening to the show and wanna know how I'm gonna answer for Frank's question, or in fact any other question I've been asked from my past guests, uh, come follow me on LinkedIn, uh, connect with me on LinkedIn.

Even don't, just follow me, connect, say, how's it, uh, you can find me at Matt Edmundson. So, Frank, what is your question for me?

Frank Arellano: What's your approval rate?[00:30:00]

Matt Edmundson: You know what? I should have seen that one come in. What's wrong with me? Brilliant. If you wanna know, my approval rate is come find me on LinkedIn and I will tell you exactly what we've talked about. Then the um, false declines. Frank, what are some of the things that we should be thinking about around real declines?

Because I know for a lot of merchants, um, chargebacks are an issue. For me, it's always, I remember the first time we sent an order out to somebody and we found out it was a fraud, and I was just, I was just really angry. I, the injustice of it, not the money, but just how dare they, you know, um, what, what sort of things can we do on that side of the equation?

Frank Arellano: Yeah, great. Great question. Um, I I, I, I always encourage our, um, merchants or customers, which are ecommerce businesses to have, uh, multiple payment methods, [00:31:00] right? Because the, you, you're gonna have a problem. Mm-hmm. You're gonna max the card or something, but you still want to keep the service in some sort of way.

Mm-hmm. Or the expiration date issue comes up. To have a secondary form of payment, that's always helpful, right? Um, I encourage them to make that voluntary with their customer base. Um, but that is something that can be super effective, having other forms of payment methods, right? Mm-hmm. Debit is a great solution.

Um, you know, other options out there, some of the, uh, BNPL stuff, um, as, as an option, right? Because that, that can help, um, you know, keep that customer retention going. So look at many ways like that.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Have multiple methods. 'cause I, I, again, I just from experience, I, I can tell you if a credit card doesn't work, I'll just use PayPal, you know, or, um, whatever, you know, it makes sense for us.

I appreciate how we do it in the UK is different how you do it in the States. Um, [00:32:00] slightly in, in some respects, but, um, I. I'm just thinking on our websites. We definitely have, I, I do know we have multiple payment methods. I'm gonna check. Yeah, and we always include those. It's really interesting actually. I dunno if you've seen this in the States as much as we see it.

I've seen it here. Um, but the rise of people or companies like Klarna, where you'll go onto the site and instead of paying a hundred bucks, I can go and sign up to like four payments of 25 bucks, and Klarna charged me a percentage fee to, to offer this. But it, it helps with conversion with clients. Um. So obviously then Klarna paid me.

This just another form of method. It, I make slightly less money, but it, you know, it, does it increase conversion enough? Um, I, I do you have those in the states? I mean, I'm assuming you do, I'm assuming we rob the idea from, from our American cousins, which is normally what we do. Um, how do they, how have they [00:33:00] impacted, I guess, what you guys do?

Frank Arellano: Uh, I mean, they still, um, utilize sort of credit rails for, um, some of their products. Right. So it doesn't really sort of affect us anyway. And, and I'm a big proponent of having multiple payment methods out there, even mm-hmm. It something that doesn't sort of run through our rails. I think it's an effective customer strategy and, um, I use them as a consumer.

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.

Frank Arellano: Signed up for, um, uh, my son's in club basketball. Which is very expensive, right. And I'm like, oh, I can spread this stuff out for four months instead of it sort of a lump sum. So it was fantastic. I loved it.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. And in some respects, from the consumer's point of view, it's a no brainer. I've just got an interest free line for four months, even though if I've got the money, I'm just, you know, um, not that you know you Well, I say you're not gonna wear an interest.

Of course you are, but it's gonna be negligible. But, you know, I was, I was, um. A, a good friend of mine who, who passed away a few years ago, uh, and he passed away at a good old age, and he [00:34:00] made, he made millions. Frank and I, when I say millions, I mean millions. Um, on the basis of, of this sort of, these minute numbers of savings over four months.

Do you know what I mean? He would, he realized he owned supermarkets. He thought, well, if I leave the, the beans on the pallet and I don't take them off, then I've saved myself a penny a. Tinner beans. Do you know what I mean? It's simple things like that. Really fascinating how his sort of cost mentality worked.

So before we wrap up, if you have found this episode insightful, I'd like to invite you to our weekly newsletter where. We, we are gonna, there'll be the show notes, of course, the standard stuff in there, but we expand on the topic. Uh, we're gonna look at this in a lot more detail. I like the podcast. I love the podcast.

I love the format, but it is limited in some respects. Um, it's brilliant for big ideas, but the newsletter is where we can really break things down step by step. And of course, you can sign up [00:35:00] for that on the podcast website, eCommerce podcast.net, or the link will be in the show notes. Uh, but Frank, listen.

So I, I'm thoroughly embarrassed 'cause I don't dunno, my, my, uh, payment decline rate. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm assuming that I'm not the only one though listening, uh, that, that, that has that problem. So we're gonna go away and find it out. But if people wanna know more about, you, want to dig into the topic a little bit further, maybe got questions for you, maybe they wanna know about Revolve, what's the best way to.

To sort of connect and find out more?

Frank Arellano: Yeah, I would say go to our website. We got a lot of sort of helpful information, uh, white papers, that sort of thing. It's revolv3.com, R-E-V-O-L-V-3.com. Um, or shoot me off, uh, an email. Happy to sort of, uh, you know, assess where you are. So [email protected].

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. We will of course link to those, uh, bits of information in the [00:36:00] show notes as well. So if you're on a podcast app, just scroll down and click the link and you'll go straight. Are you on LinkedIn, Frank?

Frank Arellano: I am,

Matt Edmundson: yeah. Excellent. Well, we'll include that as, do you do LinkedIn or you just, I, I have it.

'cause you're supposed to have it when you're in business or are you a big fan of it?

Frank Arellano: Yeah, I'm a big fan. I like, I love the messaging in there. I use that quite a bit.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, I've, I've definitely been more active in the last six months on LinkedIn than I think the rest of my entire life. And I, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a quite a big fan.

Um. Frank, listen, thank you for joining us. Before you go though, uh, for the listeners that have stayed with us this far, we have a new section here on eCommerce Podcast called Saving the Best Till Last, and this is where I say to my guests, Frank, what's your one tip? Maybe something that we've not talked about, maybe one thing that's gonna change our businesses for the better, either in what we've talked about or something completely different.

In your years of ecommerce, if there was like one key tip that you could share. What would that be?

Frank Arellano: I think it's related to what we talked about. I, [00:37:00] because to your point, Matt, um, a lot of people just kind of assume payments work and you can leave it alone. So I would say go through your processing statements.

I know they're super complicated and all these interchange numbers and things like that. But understand what your approval rates are, understand how much you're, you're paying for it, right? Your effective rate. They may advertise 2.9, but then you realize after all these other fees, you're paying 4%.

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.

Frank Arellano: Um, so get informed, um, know what that is. Um, because I, I, I, there's likely opportunity there to either save or improve that, um, uh, those decline rates.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Fantastic. Frank. Thank you so much, brother. Thanks for coming on. Genuinely, genuinely, uh, loved the conversation. Very envious of Laguna Beach, not very envious of Milton Keynes, uh, which is where you did live for a little while.

Um, I, we joked about that before we hit the record. Not that I have any issues with Milton Keynes, obviously. Um, uh, [00:38:00] but I, I can see why you would choose Laguna Beach over Milton Keynes. Yeah, for sure. Easy to. But listen, loved it, loved the conversation. Let's definitely stay in touch. Let's meet up at Subs, Sumit.

And of course, like I said, if anyone's listening, uh, thus far do come and say how's it to, to us at Sub Summit. But thank Frank. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you. Awesome. Well, that's it from me. That's it from Frank. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.

I'll see you next time. Bye for now.