Case Study: Bash unifies online + in-store payments with Stitch

Overview

TFG’s Bash is one of the first players in South Africa’s retail space that has developed a truly omnichannel offering. In this space, seamlessness and continuity are key to an ideal customer experience – and payments plays a key role in enabling this to happen. 

Bash needed a partner that can ensure customers enjoy the same fast, intuitive checkout whether they are shopping online, in-app or in-store. Early in the brand’s journey, Bash partnered with Stitch to power payments across channels and methods, from Pay by bank and card to in-person payments.

Since launching in March 2023, Bash has scaled quickly: 1M+ downloads in six months, 3.8M downloads by end-2023, 1.2M+ customers, and 420M+ shopping sessions across web and app. Payments is a core pillar of that growth, and Stitch is the engine helping to make it seamless across channels.

Challenge

As mobile penetration in South Africa grows and online commerce rises in popularity, many customers, including those of Bash, move fluidly between channels and expect the same experience no matter where they shop. The team needed a way to:

• Offer more ways to pay in both online and store environments
• Offer a consistent experience across channels 
• Improve speed and conversion at checkout without adding operational complexity

“As soon as you change your partner, and particularly in payments, which is such a critical moment in terms of the customer journey, there's always a risk. And so we felt at the time there was a risk worth taking with the Stitch team.” — Greg Walsh, Head of Fintech, Bash

“Our payments ecosystem is really interesting… in our store environment it's all in-person payments… and online it's typical gateway methods… And what we're doing alongside Stitch is really building an orchestration model that allows both sets of payments to be used in both environments.” — Luke Jedeiken, CEO & Co-Founder, Bash

Solution

From the beginning of their relationship, the Bash team challenged Stitch to see if Stitch could outperform their existing provider for online payments. They ran an experiment to compare their provider to Stitch on a 1:1 basis. Stitch significantly outperformed, which made them comfortable to switch to Stitch. Since then, the team has expanded the ways we work together, as Stitch continues to develop solutions alongside the Bash team that meet the needs of their growing business. 

Today Bash and Stitch work together across both online and in-person payments, including multi-method acceptance. They started using Stitch for Pay by bank on the Bash site and app, then expanded to card and in-person payments following the Stitch acquisition of ExiPay; then they added digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay via the Stitch Wallet SDKs which offered a significant boost to conversion - upwards of 30-40% upon launch.

“The best payments experience is one that you don't think about, and I think delivering digital wallets for Bash and having it in the hands of customers, having it in my own hands, is super powerful. So for us we considered how do we not only build a really high-performing payment method product, but also think carefully about the integration? Some of the innovation around that was the introduction of the Stitch wallet SDKs.” — Kialan Pillay, Full-Stack Engineer, Stitch

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Results

Speed, conversion, and adoption jumped – quickly.‍

10× faster checkout with the launch of Apple Pay:

‍“We reduced the time through paying with card by about 10x – from around 1 minute to 5 seconds – and overnight improved conversion rates by 35-40% versus card.” — Greg Walsh, Head of Fintech, Bash

Rapid wallet uptake: Within a week of launch, about 50% of transactions on iOS shifted to digital wallets like Apple Pay

Benchmark-breaking conversion: Apple Pay and digital wallets outperformed traditional card benchmarks 

Omnichannel consistency: The same smooth, fast flow became accessible across online and in-store, supporting Bash’s broader goal to blend retail and financial experiences.

“I think if you look at Bash and Stitch, it's probably a dream partnership for us… founded in so many similarities between the two businesses.” — Dewald Müller, Head of Customer Success, Stitch

Bash treats payments as part of the retail experience, not a back-office utility.

“What the world's best omnichannel players have shown is it's not about killing stores, it's about making them better… introducing in-store shoppers to benefits typically reserved for online: more choice, more ways to pay, faster delivery, etc.” — Luke Jedeiken, CEO & Co-Founder, Bash

“Fintech sits squarely in the middle of bridging these two worlds… If we can be the bridge and allow Bash and TFG to seamlessly identify that customer and transaction regardless of where it happens, it enables a powerful experience.” — Kiaan Pillay, CEO & Co-Founder, Stitch

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