Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, today announced a partnership with URBN to power online and in-person retail payments for Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie Group, Free People, and FP Movement. With Stripe as its primary payments infrastructure, URBN will introduce a more consistent checkout experience for its customers with the goal of increasing authorization rates and enabling future innovation.
“Payments are a critical link between our brands and millions of URBN customers who expect checkouts to be as easy as trying on an outfit or adding items to a cart,” said Dave Hayne, chief technology officer at URBN. “Stripe lets us stay focused on building the best unified commerce experience possible by removing the complexity of payments across our brands.”
With billions in annual sales, URBN is consolidating the majority of its North American payments volume onto Stripe. In doing so, URBN expects to see higher authorizations, better reliability, more precise data analytics, and greater potential for future payments innovation.
Improving performance with Stripe
URBN will use Stripe in multiple ways:
In-store payments. Stripe Terminal will become URBN’s primary in-store checkout option in North America, using BBPOS WisePOS E readers at more than 600 locations and requiring little additional employee training to implement.
Simplified online checkout. URBN is using Link and Stripe Financial Connections to allow online customers to seamlessly pay with their bank accounts. Customers who have saved their bank account details at any business using Link can quickly check out without having to reenter their payment information.
Expanded payment options. In the future, URBN plans to use Stripe’s optimized checkout suite to display the most relevant payment methods to customers based on their device type, location, language, and many more factors.
Extended authorization windows. Under URBN’s fulfillment process, card payments for URBN purchases are only processed when a customer’s order has been shipped or picked up from a store. URBN will use Stripe to extend the authorization window from the time between an order being placed to the time it ships, ensuring more transactions are successful even in the unlikely event of a delay.
Payment performance and reliability. URBN will benefit from API reliability exceeding 99.999% and authorization rates that remain high during times of peak demand.
“Without the right payments setup, retailers are leaving millions on the table at a time when customers are even more selective about their spending,” said Eileen O’Mara, chief revenue officer at Stripe. “Shoppers expect an easy checkout experience and businesses want high authorization rates. We’re thrilled our partnership will enable both for URBN.”
URBN will use additional tools to power money movement and gather more precise analytics. URBN will use Stripe Connect to facilitate payments between third-party merchants and buyers on their brand marketplaces, which host independent apparel brands. Additionally, finance teams at URBN will use Stripe Sigma and Stripe Data Pipeline to automate the collection of revenue data and financial reporting for all of its brands.
