OneDayOnly Boosts Payment Success by 5% Through Strategic Stitch Partnership

South African e-commerce platform OneDayOnly has integrated Stitch to modernise its payment infrastructure, addressing critical bottlenecks in transaction success and reconciliation. For fintech professionals, this partnership demonstrates the necessity of high-performance payment gateways in flash-sale environments where transaction urgency and high traffic volumes demand uncompromising uptime and seamless multi-method checkout experiences to maintain conversion rates.

What was announced

OneDayOnly has implemented Stitch’s payment technology to manage the increasing complexity of its high-volume daily deal operations. The platform, which has scaled from a single daily offer to over 300 deals across tech, homeware, and luxury goods, required a solution to mitigate checkout friction and abandoned carts. The integration focuses on four core pillars: uncompromising security and compliance, scalability with automatic failover to prevent gateway downtime, a frictionless checkout supporting multiple payment methods beyond traditional cards, and a commercial model designed to optimise routing and minimise failed transaction fees.

The results of the migration include a measurable 5% increase in payment success rates. Beyond the checkout experience, the partnership has streamlined back-office functions; settlement timelines have accelerated, and the daily transaction-to-settlement reconciliation process, which was previously a significant manual administrative burden, has been simplified. This frees up manual administrative time that the finance team previously spent verifying transactions. Any payment that fails for the wrong reason not only results in lost revenue but also erodes customer trust and places additional strain on client service teams. The platform's rapid growth meant that previous infrastructure could no longer support the business at its new scale, particularly during high-traffic events where outages would have a magnified financial impact.

During the implementation, Stitch’s team worked directly with OneDayOnly’s internal developers to provide hands-on support. This technical overhaul coincides with OneDayOnly’s internal adoption of AI to streamline workflows and manage backlogs. While the company is using AI to ship features faster, it maintains a human-centric approach to negotiating the deals that form the core of its business model.

"We ultimately chose Stitch because they offer more than just a commoditised payment gateway. Their technology gave us the reliability and advanced payment methods we needed, but it was their partnership approach that won us over. Their deep understanding of the South African payments landscape, developer-friendly architecture and willingness to collaborate on solving our specific operational bottlenecks made them the ideal strategic partner for our next phase of growth."

Kassel Rothmann, Head of Finance and Commercials at OneDayOnly.

The companies involved

OneDayOnly launched in 2010 as South Africa’s original daily deals site. The business model relies on a rotating range of offers available for only 24 hours, creating a sense of urgency that defines the brand. Over the last decade, the company has undergone several strategic shifts, moving from a desktop-first to a mobile-first operation. It has consistently expanded its product range through specific properties, such as Wine Wednesday (introduced in 2016), the Lunchtime Deal (2017), and an expanded FMCG offering in 2020. In recent years, the platform added a permanent Everyday Essentials shop in 2021, gift vouchers in 2022, and Extra Time Deals in 2024. Its customer base, known as "OneDayOnly Fans," spans diverse demographics across South Africa.

The company maintains that the human element remains central to its operations, particularly the negotiation of deals, which the team views as a "hustle" that technology cannot yet replicate. This focus on personality and brand voice is intended to differentiate the platform from other e-commerce entities as it scales its daily deal volume. Stitch is a South African payment infrastructure provider that positions itself as a strategic partner rather than a commoditised gateway. The company focuses on providing developer-friendly architecture and deep local market expertise to help businesses solve specific operational bottlenecks. By offering advanced payment methods and robust redundancy, Stitch aims to support the next phase of growth for high-scale digital platforms in the region.

What this means

This move signals a shift in the South African e-commerce landscape, where the "good enough" payment gateway is no longer sufficient for high-velocity retailers. As consumer expectations for fast delivery and seamless checkout rise, the pressure on underlying infrastructure becomes a make-or-break factor for conversion. A 5% lift in success rates is a significant margin protector in a competitive retail environment, suggesting that legacy providers may face increasing pressure from more agile, developer-centric infrastructure partners. The industry must now consider whether the future of regional payments lies in these deep, collaborative integrations rather than traditional, hands-off service models that struggle to handle the nuances of flash-sale traffic spikes.