Founded in 1944, Bodum is a third-generation family enterprise producing innovative household and kitchen accessories. Under the motto “make taste, not waste”, it is known for its focus on affordability and sustainability, while never compromising on quality.

Sustainable, functional, direct to consumers

With its unique approach to functional, environmentally-friendly design, Bodum has built a successful, global company and a loyal customer base. But when the pandemic hit, it faced a raft of new challenges – and new opportunities.

Bodum had a strong network selling its products through thousands of retailers, but overnight, shopping centres around the world emptied and people flocked online. Endlessly stuck at home, many began investing in new homeware as they turned to their kitchens to get through lockdown life. New records were set in home cooking and coffee drinking. Bodum spotted the surge in demand from people visiting its website, and e-commerce suddenly became its primary distribution channel.

The pixel-perfect checkout

With the majority of customers now ordering from their mobiles directly on its website, Bodum sought to find the right partner to quickly build a seamless online experience.

“Sometimes people think that online is easy, but payment is something that is actually very sensitive to many customers,” says Peter Bodum, E-commerce Manager. “People expect simple checkout processes. One too many inconvenient clicks, or a payment that doesn’t work – and we’ve lost a sale.”

Bodum’s online customers tend to be savvy shoppers aged 21–35. They want products that are subtle and clean, with a sleek design. Flawless engineering is at the heart of all of Bodum’s products, and when it came to building its checkout flow it sought the same perfection.

Working with Stripe, Bodum created a sophisticated customer journey on both desktop and mobile. Integrating Stripe Elements – which helps businesses create the exact payment experience they want with just a few lines of code – Bodum was able to instantly accept credit cards and dynamically offer the preferred payment methods for its customers in Belgium (Bancontact) and the Netherlands (iDEAL).

Easy integration supporting global growth

Bodum is a family-run business with a global outlook. During the pandemic, it was able to scale its direct-to-consumer online business to 23 countries in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia.

“Stripe helped us respond quickly to the complex challenges that the pandemic threw our way. We had to pivot our business to meet increased online demand and set our system up in less than a month. Thanks to Stripe, we have been able to launch in new countries, focus on enhancing our direct sales approach, and ramp up our sustainability efforts, without worrying about developer resources or system updates.”

Thinking about the future, Peter says: “As the world re-opens, we are continuing our international expansion both online and offline, through traditional retail stores. Underpinning our approach is flexibility. Retail will continue to change around the world, and we need to be able to react quickly to the developing landscape, just as we did during the pandemic. Stripe enables us to be much more adaptive to the new world.”