Challenge

Started in Singapore in 2013, Castlery sold its products online and soon after ventured into offline retail with physical showrooms. However, handling both online and offline payments was complex. In Singapore, transactions that had been processed in-store required manual input of purchase information into Castlery’s internal systems. And refunds for in-store transactions were a source of pain for Castlery customers. Travers Tan, cofounder and SVP of sales, explains that Castlery “had to collect a customer’s bank account and make a transfer through the banking system, a process that could take up to two weeks and cause distress for customers.”

Solution

To eliminate this hassle, Castlery integrated with Stripe’s unified platform to manage its in-store and e-commerce payments in one place. Castlery switched to Stripe Terminal, which enables businesses to seamlessly integrate both online and in-store payments data into their records. The integration process was done within a month, and Stripe’s developer-support and account-deployment teams worked closely with Castlery in a joint Slack channel.

Results

Stripe Terminal simplifies refunds and reconciliation with a unified view of the customer

Now, with Stripe, the refund process has shortened to only a few days, there’s an immediate notification, and Castlery doesn’t have to collect any extra details from customers.

Because Castlery uses Stripe to accept online and in-store payments, it has a unified view of the customer that is valuable to its operations teams. If a customer has purchased online, then returns to buy something in-store, Castlery has a full view of their activity and can tailor their customer experience accordingly. This also helps the finance team with the reconciliation process. Instead of printing out accounts from various providers for offline and online payments, and spending hours tracking down various codes and transactions, all transaction data is easily available in the Stripe Dashboard. Travers explains that “with Stripe, it’s a seamless process – customers just tap their card in-store, and our systems are instantly updated.”

Expansion to the US and protection from fraud with Stripe Radar

After integrating Stripe in Singapore and Australia, Castlery later expanded to the US in 2019. Castlery was mindful of different fraud patterns in the US market, so it activated a fraud-detection engine with Stripe Radar. Castlery collaborated with Stripe to set up new rules; for example, imposing 3D Secure 2 for high-risk transactions and feeding certain transactions into a risk-review process.

With Stripe assisting its payment operations, Castlery intends to further establish its market share in Australia’s furniture-retail scene and continue growing and expanding in the US.