Challenge

THE ICONIC has built its brand on making fashion and lifestyle shopping online smooth and inspiring. Since launching in 2011, the Sydney-based e-commerce company has grown into the largest online fashion, sports and lifestyle platform in Australia and New Zealand, serving more than two million active customers with a curated assortment of 1,500 brands across 250,000 SKUs.

As the business grew, THE ICONIC wanted to offer customers more choice at checkout to strengthen customer relationships and keep pace with changing payment preferences. However, its existing payment setup required direct integrations with multiple payment providers, making it difficult to launch new payment methods. In many cases, the engineering support, testing and rollout required for each new payment method took up to six weeks, limiting the company's ability to experiment and respond quickly to demand.

THE ICONIC needed a payment partner that could ensure it kept pace with changing customer expectations, especially as mobile shopping became central to the business. With two-thirds of sales coming through its app, the company needed a flexible payment foundation that could support popular mobile payment methods while helping reduce payment processing fees.

"Choosing the right payments platform was an important decision because it would shape how we can respond to changing customer expectations over the years ahead," said Chris Thompson, CFO at THE ICONIC.

Solution

After evaluating several providers, THE ICONIC chose Stripe to replace its existing payment partner. "Once we looked objectively at all the options, Stripe stood out. There's a natural connection between our businesses. We both want to understand customer problems, find creative solutions and act with speed," said Thompson.

The company first implemented Stripe Payments in 2020. In 2026, it upgraded its integration by migrating to Stripe's payment element, making it easier for the company to launch new payment methods and allowing customers to check out with their preferred way to pay.

THE ICONIC built its checkout on Stripe's payment element, creating a single integration that allowed its payments team to configure payment methods without engineering support. In addition to accepting credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, the payment element allowed the company's payment team to add new payment methods including Zip and WeChat Pay.

With the Stripe Dashboard, THE ICONIC could also compare the cost drivers behind different payment methods and identify opportunities to reduce its transaction costs. That visibility helped the team better understand how to use least-cost routing through the eftpos Australia network for eligible debit card payments, which is less expensive than processing through the card networks.

THE ICONIC also partnered with Stripe's professional services team to modernise its checkout experience. Stripe supported the migration to the payment element, helped integrate Zip to meet the buy-now-pay-later demand, delivered a custom PayPal integration tailored to THE ICONIC's checkout requirements, and enabled saved payment method display for returning customers to reduce friction and support conversion.

Results

THE ICONIC migrates to the payment element in two weeks

With support from Stripe, THE ICONIC migrated to Stripe's payment element in two weeks without disrupting the checkout experience for customers.

"Stripe's service team was really impressive. They focused on the details and helped us resolve any issues quickly. Overall, the transition was incredibly smooth," said Arti Shokeen, senior product manager at THE ICONIC.

Checkout conversion rates increase by 1%

After migrating to Stripe's payment element, THE ICONIC increased conversion by 1% and improved payment success rates by 2.5 percentage points.

"We are streamlining checkout, reducing cart abandonment and continuously optimising the payment interface to create a seamless and frictionless customer journey," said Shokeen.

THE ICONIC launches new payment methods in two days

THE ICONIC used Stripe's payment element to test and add several new payment methods directly through the Stripe Dashboard without having to build or maintain direct integrations for each new payment method. For example, the company launched Zip in two days without requiring engineering support, compared to the four to six weeks that it used to take to add payment methods with its previous payment provider.

"The configuration-based dashboard lets us turn payment methods on and off without needing to invest dev time," said Shokeen.

Apple Pay grows to 40% of payment volume

THE ICONIC uses Stripe's payment element to support mobile-first payment methods such as Apple Pay across its checkout experience. Apple Pay has become one of the company's most popular payment methods, accounting for 40% of its total payment volume.

"People love the convenience of one-tap checkout, and we're seeing those payment methods grow in popularity year after year," said Shokeen.

THE ICONIC reduces debit card payment costs by 5%

By using least-cost routing, THE ICONIC reduced payment costs by approximately 5% without changing the checkout experience for customers.

"From the customer perspective, there's no difference whatsoever, but routing transactions down the eftpos network has a material savings for us," said Thompson.