In 2009, a major e-commerce site made a single change to one button. Revenue increased by $300 million in the first year. This is the story of the most expensive button in internet history.
The Scene
Imagine you're shopping online. You've found what you want, added items to your cart, and you're ready to check out. You click the checkout button. And the site asks you to log in or create an account.
Seems reasonable, right? The company wants to know who you are. They want to save your information for next time. They want to build a relationship.
But here's what the data showed: 45% of customers had multiple accounts. They'd forgotten passwords, created new accounts, and now had duplicates. The "returning customer" experience was frustrating millions of people.
New customers were worse. Faced with a registration form, many just... left. They'd done all the work of shopping, and the requirement to create an account was the final straw.
The Change
UX consultant Jared Spool was brought in to help. His recommendation was radical for the time: let people check out without creating an account.
The button changed from "Register" to "Continue."
The message changed from "Please log in to continue" to "You don't need to create an account. Simply click Continue to proceed. To make future purchases faster, you can create an account during checkout."
That was it. Same products. Same prices. Same shipping options. Just one less barrier between "I want this" and "I bought this."
The Results
The number of customers who completed purchases increased by 45%. Revenue increased by $300 million in the first year alone.
$300 million from changing one button.
Why Registration Kills Sales
The registration form was doing several harmful things:
Creating friction at the worst moment. The customer is ready to give you money. They've made the psychological commitment. Every additional step is an opportunity for them to reconsider.
Demanding a relationship they didn't ask for. The customer wants a transaction, not a marriage. Forcing account creation feels presumptuous. "I just want to buy socks, not commit to your brand for life."
Adding password anxiety. People have too many passwords already. Creating another one—and knowing they'll probably forget it—is genuinely stressful.
Requiring email at the wrong time. Giving an email address feels like signing up for spam. Even if you don't spam people, they don't trust that.
The Deeper Lesson
This story isn't really about buttons. It's about a fundamental truth in product design: your assumptions about what users want are probably wrong.
The company assumed customers would value having an account—faster future checkouts, order history, saved addresses. And some customers do value those things.
But they never questioned whether forcing everyone through registration was worth the customers it drove away. They optimized for the 5% who would become repeat buyers while ignoring the 40% who just wanted to complete one purchase.
How to Find Your $300 Million Button
Every product has friction that seems necessary but isn't. Finding it requires:
Watching real users. Not surveys. Not focus groups. Actual observation of people using your product. Watch where they hesitate, get confused, or give up.
Questioning every step. For each thing you ask users to do, ask: "What would happen if we removed this?" Sometimes the answer is "everything breaks." Often it's "nothing important."
Measuring abandonment. Where do people start something and not finish? Those drop-off points are gold mines.
Being willing to sacrifice sacred cows. The registration requirement felt important. It helped marketing, customer service, and analytics. But it hurt the thing that mattered most: getting customers to complete purchases.
The Irony
Here's the twist: after removing the registration requirement, more people created accounts than before.
Once customers completed their purchase, many chose to create an account to track their order. Without the pressure, without the barrier, they opted in voluntarily.
Turns out people are more willing to commit after they've already gotten value. Who knew?
The $300 million button teaches that the best user experience often means getting out of the way. What unnecessary friction are you creating?
Want Better Conversion?
MKTM Studios designs user experiences that drive results. Let's find your $300 million button.
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