Challenge

BloomNation upends the legacy florist-broker model by empowering small businesses to showcase their design talents and in-season floral products directly to consumers rather than simply recreating stock arrangements. Florists pay BloomNation a subscription fee and a small percentage of sales for tools to create an online presence and build a customer base. It’s all part of a larger effort by the Promenade Group—the parent company of BloomNation, Swigg, Dig-in, Bevv, and other brands targeting specific verticals—to help independent business owners thrive in the world of ecommerce.

Founded in 2011, BloomNation was using Balanced Payments to run its marketplace payments. When that company shut down in 2015, BloomNation needed a replacement to continue powering its rapid rate of growth. Its engineering team considered WePay and Braintree, but eventually selected Stripe based on positive reviews from other developers and the need for a speedy transition.

“We had so many others telling us to move to Stripe, so it was a pretty easy decision,” said Gregg Weisstein, BloomNation founder and COO.

Once live with Stripe Connect, BloomNation wanted to help accelerate its customer growth and improve customer retention by becoming a financial hub for its customers. BloomNation was able to quickly launch a lending program with Stripe Capital’s no-code implementation option — providing fast, flexible financing options directly to its customers.

Solution

BloomNation’s lean engineering team was able to get up and running quickly on Stripe, allowing the company to focus on acquiring more florists. With Stripe Connect onboarding, BloomNation can seamlessly and instantly approve new florists for payments. “For onboarding, we didn't have to build out our own identity verification flows because we just used Stripe’s, which was nice,” Weisstein said.

BloomNation also eases back-end business complexity for its community of florists. By embedding Stripe Payments into its software, BloomNation gives florists a centralized location to take orders, send invoices, handle refunds and disputes, prevent fraudulent charges, and manage taxes. Similarly, BloomNation uses Stripe to streamline its own transactions: It uses Stripe Billing to collect subscription payments.

With Stripe Capital, BloomNation was able to quickly stand up an embedded lending experience for its customers to relieve cash constraints and help them invest in growth. Stripe Capital’s no-code implementation option meant BloomNation could start lending to its customers in days with no engineering effort and only light marketing support.

With Stripe’s suite of products, BloomNation is now making plans to launch point-of-sale solutions and business financing for its florists.

“Our goal is to get in-store card readers to flower shops very soon,” Weisstein said. “And we're very excited about Stripe Capital. Our florists are just like any other small business and can make use of that capital to open a second location, add more headcount, add inventory, or fund whatever they need to grow.”

Results

BloomNation has put its business into high-growth mode by giving florists the tools and technologies required to build and expand their online presence.

Stripe powers strong growth in both BloomNation and the small businesses they serve

Since moving to Stripe as its payments and financial services platform, BloomNation has blossomed into a marketplace for 3,500 florists delivering to nearly 5,000 cities across the US. Florists using BloomNation see an average of 40% annual growth.

Stripe’s flexibility and easy onboarding enables fast expansion into new markets

BloomNation found success by creating tools to serve the specific needs of small businesses in specific industries. It took that model and developed differentiated solutions that cater to other types of businesses, including pizzerias, breweries, and wine and liquor stores.

Partnering with Stripe for a comprehensive suite of small business financial services

For their fast-growing customer base, BloomNation is also creating a unified solution for payments and financial services by adding in-store payments, business financing, and more—all via Stripe.

“We want to be a one-stop shop for everything a small business needs, from point-of-sale and the marketplace to payments and proposals, and Stripe is helping us get there,” Weisstein said.
“Having all of these tools bundled together really increases the value we can provide to our customers.”