That One Little Detail Changed Our Approach to Product Development

Even commission fees can favor your customers, as long as you listen to them.

Practice shows that you cannot launch a flawless product from day one as it takes time and thousands of users to spot the imperfections. Shortcomings are blessings in disguise. How so? Users tend to appreciate something being fixed even more than if it was working fine in the first place.

In 2018, Mercuryo started its journey as a cryptocurrency wallet provider. Although we had a greater vision for the company’s future, it was essential to launch ASAP without hesitating too much. After all, the sooner pain points come out, the quicker we fix them.

The Commission Fee Dilemma

Exchange fees create the most heated discussions in the crypto space. It’s usually not the fact that you have to pay a commission that frustrates people, but the existence of hidden fees per se. And to be fair, that happens on almost every platform.

The platform would declare a 1% buying fee, and if you’re persistent enough to do the math after the purchase, you risk making unpleasant discoveries. Admittedly, when the exchange announces no-fee withdrawals, it often means that the fees will come up elsewhere. You either end up paying higher trading fees, or the costs will be included in the exchange rate.

The exchange rate is the second-biggest mystery. A good practice is when the platform uses rates close to the average on the market, but not everyone is willing to play fair. Besides, there are conversion fees to keep in mind. If you’re depositing your local currency to an exchange that only deals with USD, add up the conversion rate costs. So the best-case scenario would be to choose the platform accepting your fiat currency of choice in case you’re making deposits using your credit card.

If you want to avoid paying the fees whatsoever, trading on a decentralized exchange could be your way out. However, most of DEXs do not have the option of depositing fiat money, and it won’t be the best option for those who are only starting their crypto journey.

Mercuryo vs. Fees

When we launched Mercuryo wallet, we didn’t realize that the fee calculation model would become a problem. Initially, we included the fees (3.95% for buying, and 2.95% for selling) in the exchange rate as it seemed like the fastest and more convenient solution. Hiding fees was never our intention; we simply thought it would make more sense if the customers could see the total amount of purchase. And also, we wanted to go live as soon as possible fixing the imperfections along the way.

Once the product went live, we started actively communicating with our customers. As a result, we received valuable feedback and detailed information about how the users are interacting with Mercuryo’s wallet and widget. It turned out that the current fee calculation model is misleading — the exchange rate seems way too high while the total amount appeared to be lower. Although it was clear that we need to separate the fee and the rate, coding-wise, it was a lot more challenging. Our goal was to redesign the current system without messing up with any other processes. And that’s when the implementation of API 1.6 began.

It took us a few months to figure out the mechanics. Eventually, we decided to step away from using PHP and go for Go microservices instead. The microservice can receive the exchange commission and calculate the actual credit card charge or withdrawal amount. Besides, it determines the fee and total sum of the purchase or withdrawal in crypto while converting to fiat.

Change is an integral part of building a product, especially when these changes are driven by users. API 1.6 with a transparent, fair fee system is already enabled in Mercuryo Wallet and Widget. Ever since API went live, we started receiving fewer fee-related customer requests. And that’s a good indicator we did the right thing.

Focus and Transformation

While rolling out a new update that aligns with our core values is exciting enough, we believe that listening to our customers is even more crucial. As we mentioned in the beginning, a working product is better than a perfect non-existing one. Perfection is the enemy of progress. Learning from your mistakes and fixing them, on the other hand, is the best way to build a better platform.

Mercuryo’s products, be it the wallet, widget, or any other service, are designed to simplify the financial operations of people around the globe. We’re focused on the end-user, and that’s why it’s our number one priority to gather feedback and fix the issues that arise.

This article was written by Andrey Ilinskiy, the Product Owner of Mercuryo.

Originally published at https://blog.mercuryo.io.