Challenge

Gallup may be best known for its public opinion research, but it’s also a global leader in people development tools. The company maintains a large ecommerce operation, selling its CliftonStrengths assessment as well as leadership courses and other educational materials to individuals, governments, and corporations around the globe.

Originally, Gallup sold online through a legacy ecommerce platform that acted as its merchant of record. Seeking lower transaction fees and modern payment features, Gallup pursued a new payment partner for a feature-rich, API-based platform in which Gallup would be the merchant of record. The company signed with Stripe in 2024, impressed by its diverse feature set and powerful developer tools, and Gallup’s developers began testing Stripe features in a sandbox environment.

Gallup had planned for a long-term, multiphase transition. But that approach was upended when its legacy vendor suddenly became insolvent early in 2025. As a result, Gallup needed to go live with its new ecommerce solution immediately. And because Gallup was taking over as merchant of record, doing so would require building out its tax compliance, pricing, and fulfillment infrastructure at the same time.

Solution

Working closely with the Stripe team, Klare Chapman, Gallup’s director of finance and global commerce, saw revenue recovery as the overarching priority. “The question was, ‘How do we get back live again and recover as much revenue as possible—in the simplest way?’”

On a Friday at noon, Gallup set its online store to maintenance mode and got to work. The company assembled a team of leaders from several areas of the business in a cross-functional “command center.” They started by adopting Stripe Payments. Gallup had been selling in 27 currencies and 7 languages. The goal now was to go live as quickly as possible with US dollars, fulfilling global sales from Gallup’s US entity.

The team worked around the clock to remove the previous vendor’s code and build a new online storefront with Stripe Checkout—an embeddable prebuilt checkout form—turning on payment methods including iDEAL and Apple Pay. Stripe’s developer-friendly documentation allowed different groups to work on tax, payments, and fulfillment functions simultaneously—knowing that when they reconvened, the different pieces would fit together.

“Some people in that room had never worked on ecommerce before,” said Chapman. “With Stripe’s documentation, they could figure everything out.”

In order to take over tax management as the merchant of record, Gallup adopted Stripe Tax—a global tax automation tool the company hadn’t originally planned to use. That alone solved the vast majority of Gallup’s compliance needs. The company also implemented Stripe Invoicing, a no-code online tool designed to speed payment collection and handle tax-exempt purchases. In addition, Gallup turned on Stripe Radar for fraud management and Stripe Sigma for data and reporting.

“We essentially were able to pilot every Stripe product in a weekend,” said Chapman. “And what we learned is that Stripe is the solution to several of our challenges.”

Results

Gallup restored ecommerce in less than two days

With thorough documentation and a vast, flexible product suite, Stripe gave Gallup the tools it needed to minimize disruption to its business. The company was able to begin taking payments again 32 hours after taking its store offline.

“They were there for us in our moment of crisis,” said Chapman. “If we had questions about something, we got answers very quickly.”

Once the storefront was back online, Gallup spent the next few weeks expanding its functionality. Through its Stripe integration, the team easily added seven more currencies, a discount feature for known customers, and a multiproduct cart.

Faster payouts now improve cash flow

Previously, Gallup received payouts twice a month. With Stripe, it now receives daily payouts, with funds arriving two days after each transaction. “That’s a boon to our cash flow. And it also helps us navigate volatility in currency exchange rates,” said Chapman.

International tax management requires no additional headcount

By transforming its ecommerce model to become the merchant of record, Gallup began collecting and remitting sales tax on behalf of its users—helping them stay compliant and increasing retention. This significantly increased Gallup’s tax management obligations. Stripe Tax allowed Gallup to automate the process, solving tax management without adding any members to its team.

“The fact that we haven’t had to add any additional people or resources is a win, especially for such a huge change in our infrastructure,” said Chapman.

Visibility into payment metrics now creates revenue recovery opportunities

With Radar, Gallup has gained considerable visibility into fraud, card declines, and other important metrics. For instance, Chapman’s team has set alerts to learn when high-value transactions do not complete. The team can now easily determine whether the transaction attempt was legitimate and, if it was, follow up with the customer to recover the sale. “That data is really valuable to us, and we’re planning to do even more with it in the future,” said Chapman.

Staffers can now get the data reporting they need with Stripe Sigma’s AI-powered report builder

Stripe Sigma has brought the power of data-driven insights to all team members—whether they have analytics expertise or not. Chapman herself was shocked by the ability of Stripe Sigma’s AI-powered report builder to respond to informal extemporaneous prompts.

“It transformed my business-speak into reporting code and spit out that answer I was looking for. I said, ‘This is simply amazing,’” said Chapman.