Building a business with Stripe Connect

This week in Inside The Studio, Dan and Pete lifted the lid on Stripe Connect, a powerful payment tool created by Stripe.

Stripe Connect enables developers to facilitate payments and build online marketplaces – with payment compliance managed by Stripe.

Onboard users, accept payments, payout users, and manage the platform in one easy place. It’s a great platform that we have recently used with several of our clients. 

Take and distribute payments securely

When developing a new eCommerce platform, it’s a challenge to build a billing system yourself.

Online payments are highly regulated (and are something you don’t want to get wrong) to ensure security for both the customer and the shop owner.

Companies like Stripe have spent time, money and resources to ensure that their billing systems meet all of the regulations. They’ve done the hard work for you – so it’s a great tool for developers to then pick up and run with. 

The power of the online marketplace

Online marketplaces are a great way to offer a wide range of products from independent sellers (whilst also taking a cut). They are also a great place to build an active community of people, all interested in the same thing.

“Think Etsy for example, it’s a community of people coming together to sell handmade items. The seller gets the benefit of wider reach, a trusted platform, and a storefront for their business. Etsy takes a cut.”

If you were looking to build a similar business model – a marketplace, then Stripe Connect is a great tool to take, process and distribute payments between sellers.

The best thing about building a marketplace is the community that you can create. Active engagement from people has the power to take you further than just a share in the profits – the community do your marketing for you. 

Everyone who sells online via your marketplace will be actively pushing friends, followers and fans to your site. 

Creating a community within a marketplace fosters self-sustaining marketing. Not only are your sellers giving you cash from each sale, but they are giving you future customers. They are selling your site for you. 

Stripe Connect for platforms

Another example of Stripe Connect that we have recently implemented is for an online video consultation platform.

Stripe Connect is used to take the customer’s payment, which is then split and distributed to the person offering the consultation and to the platform owner.

The process is streamlined, easy to figure and effective and can be applied to a range of industries for a wide range of products or platforms; fundraising, invoicing, eCommerce and more.

Stripe Connect is our go-to platform of choice for splitting down payments online. Built on top of Stripe, by Stripe, it hooks in natively to the Stripe backend and combines seamlessly with existing payment accounts that you have. It is quick and easy to implement (often saving days of development time) and falls within online payment regulations. 

Are you looking to build an online marketplace or platform with split payment requirements?

If so, talk to us about your project idea.