Challenge

At auto dealerships, payment experiences have lagged behind modern retail standards. Customers expect the sleek, seamless checkout experiences that are routine at the grocery store or the mall. Instead, they encounter outdated, clunky PIN-only terminals when paying for services like oil changes or tire rotations. Dealerships also lack modern solutions for transactions like vehicle deposits or service payments when customers aren't physically present.

“Our industry is not always the first to take on new technologies,” said Panos Kotselas, director of payments operations at Long Beach, CA based myKaarma. “But there's no reason your payment experience buying a $5 sandwich should be better than the experience when you're making a $1,000 payment for your Mercedes-Benz service.”

myKaarma previously only offered a processor-agnostic gateway solution that provides dealerships with basic payment functionalities. While this allowed dealerships to bring their own merchant processor, it severely limited the payment functionalities and customer experience. In addition, reconciliation was complex and time-consuming for dealerships and myKaarma itself.

myKaarma’s fragmented payment setup also constrained its ability to grow with enterprise automotive clients. As the company targeted larger dealership groups, it became clear that more advanced payment technology was essential to differentiate its offering.

Solution

In 2022, myKaarma decided to build the next generation of its payment infrastructure on Stripe based on its leading technology, thorough documentation, and reputation as an innovator in the space. Stripe Connect, Stripe Payments, and Stripe Terminal formed the core of its upgraded payment solution.

Connect powers myKaarma’s payment platform, enabling it to offer fully customizable, API-based payment solutions to dealerships. Branded as "myKaarma Payments powered by Stripe," the platform runs on Stripe’s reliable infrastructure.

With Payments, myKaarma’s dealerships can accept both card-not-present and card-present transactions. The platform integrates Stripe into myKaarma's custom payment links, enabling two critical card-not-present use cases: remote vehicle deposits for customers purchasing cars located in other states, and automated service payment notifications sent when vehicle maintenance is complete. The solution supports popular payment methods like Apple Pay and Google Pay for both online and in-person transactions, delivering the modern checkout experience customers expect across all channels.

Through Terminal, myKaarma deploys BBPOS WisePOS E devices across its dealership service departments and sales floors. These devices replace clunky legacy terminals with more intuitive touch-screen interfaces, so that customers can enjoy a more modern payment experience—a critical upgrade, given that 78% of myKaarma transactions are card-present.

Beyond the stationary WisePOS E devices, myKaarma has embraced Stripe's mobile payment technologies, deploying M2 readers that provide ultimate portability for service advisers processing payments away from their desks. With the compact M2 reader, staff can accept payments tableside in customer waiting areas, or even outside in service bays.

Stripe’s Terminal devices give myKaarma the technical flexibility it needs to execute complex enterprise deployment, without requiring IT expertise at each site. For dealership groups with dozens or hundreds of locations, pre-configured devices can be shipped directly to individual dealerships ready to activate. “We can coordinate large-scale rollouts that previously would have been impossible to execute at this scale,” Kotselas said.

Stripe’s unified platform dramatically simplifies dealership operations by reconciling both card-present and card-not-present transactions into a single system. Instead of piecing together partial data from multiple systems, dealerships get instant visibility into all payment activity.

MyKaarma partnered with Stripe professional services to accelerate its Stripe implementation. With proactive guidance and rapid support, the team resolved issues within hours—or prevented them entirely—keeping myKaarma’s launch on-track. Stripe also collaborated on a tailored merchant acquisition and onboarding strategy to support the company’s first merchants directly.

Results

myKaarma achieves 180% year-over-year growth with Stripe

Modernizing payment infrastructure for its dealership customers has had a huge impact on myKaarma’s business growth. Since switching to Stripe in 2022, myKaarma has achieved 180% year-over-year growth, scaling from processing $1 billion in payment volume to a projected $4 billion by the end of 2025.

Unified payment platform streamlines reconciliation and dealership operations

The consolidation of card-present and card-not-present transactions into a single Stripe platform has eliminated the operational complexity of managing multiple payment systems. Dealerships now benefit from unified reconciliation across all payment channels, reducing time spent on payment processing and daily reconciliation while providing complete transaction visibility.

Modern payment experiences help secure $1.5 billion enterprise contract

Terminal’s capabilities include pre-configuring devices before they arrive at the dealership, eliminating the need to send technicians onsite for setup and making it easier to train staff. Terminal also supports the coordination of complex rollouts. Together, these advantages have become a key differentiator for myKaarma when competing for new dealership contracts. Recent major wins include a $1.5 billion deal in which myKaarma facilitated the entire merchant processing transition for a major automotive group acquiring a dealership network. The project required switching dozens of locations from legacy systems to myKaarma's Stripe-powered platform in just 24 hours.

Stripe infrastructure supports rapid scaling with minimal overhead

Despite processing nearly $3 billion annually across hundreds of dealership locations, myKaarma operates with a lean payment operations team, thanks to Stripe's flexible payment methods and Terminal's efficient deployment capabilities. With Stripe’s scalable infrastructure, the company can focus resources on product innovation and customer acquisition rather than payment system maintenance.