hipages Group is an Australian-based technology company with a vision of becoming the most trusted partner in the trade industry. In 2004, they launched their founding company hipages - the nation’s leading online marketplace that lets consumers find and hire tradespeople. hipages offers homeowners an easy three-step process to get competitive quotes from trusted professionals on their home improvement projects. For tradespeople, hipages helps power their business by giving access to quality leads or opportunities to connect with homeowners.
Over three million Australians have changed the way they find, hire and manage trusted tradespeople with hipages.
As a true partner for tradespeople, hipages strives to help transform the way tradespeople do business. Customer research conducted by hipages revealed that collecting payments from homeowners and managing cash flow was one of the biggest pain points for tradespeople. Many still rely on direct bank transfers which are often difficult to track or follow up. To address these challenges, hipages engaged Thoughtworks to develop a new and improved payment system.
Thoughtworks is one of our most trusted partners. They are a crucial part of how we think about, build and deliver software.
Thoughtworks is one of our most trusted partners. They are a crucial part of how we think about, build and deliver software.
This engagement brought together the hipages team in Australia and the Thoughtworks team based in China. In close collaboration, the teams worked together to deliver a more robust payment system that offers a better user experience and greater performance. The new system needed to be simple to use and offer a large menu of modern payment options. Of key importance was enabling quick settlement of funds and offering competitive merchant fees. Based on this criteria, the payment processing platform Stripe became the product of choice and the team helped support both the customization and integration of hipages’ user journey with Stripe. Benefits from leveraging Stripe’s payment platform included:
User integration: Users can quickly and simply signup for a Stripe payment account using hipages’ user access for tradespeople.
Process integration: Multiple platforms for payment like SMS link or a code to pay fast on Stripe and support for services like payment cards, Google Pay and Apple Pay.
Stripe payment status: Use a webhook to instantly update the user on the status of their Stripe payments.
Dashboard: Use the Stripe dashboard to monitor cash out, and withdraw money from the user collection platform.
The payment system also integrates with Tradiecore, a job management app owned by hipages Group, allowing tradespeople to collect payment for any jobs they complete whether it’s via hipages or Tradicore.
Operational finance leaders today face significant pressures to deliver greater value in an ever-increasing digital world. Financial operations modernization equips organizations with the tools, technologies, and capabilities for enhanced financial management and decision-making. The combined technical and domain expertise from Thoughtworks and Stripe helps leaders to accelerate speed to value for their organizations. Learn more.
When it came to delivery, in a truly agile fashion, the team focused on rapid delivery of incremental value by testing small proof of concepts to validate their thinking. The input from these experiments were then used to iterate and improve the payment solution.
Fostering a “one team” culture was key to the success of this engagement, helping overcome some of the unique challenges that come with offshore delivery. Leaning on team rituals and team bonding activities, they were able to overcome the limitations of working across borders, time zones and cultural differences. Aligned values and ways of working helped the team own the problem together and deliver the solution on time.
Clients can mirror their in-house capabilities with offshore partners like Thoughtworks. This increases their talent pool, making it easier to form teams that can deliver the client’s mission critical software.
Clients can mirror their in-house capabilities with offshore partners like Thoughtworks. This increases their talent pool, making it easier to form teams that can deliver the client’s mission critical software.
Impact delivered
In just three months, the team delivered a new payment platform that runs on multiple platforms including Android, iOS and Web. While it’s still early days, hipages has seen continual growth and usage each month.
Over 20% retention improvement
for tradespeople who have taken up hipages Payments.
46% of tradespeople
receiving a payment through hipages Payments will transact again.
Consistent month-on-month
new signups from tradespeople to hipages Payments.
Easy integration
into hipages’ Job Management Platform, Tradiecore.
The Thoughtworks and hipages team worked as one team. Our aligned values and close collaboration helped embed a strong one team culture.
The Thoughtworks and hipages team worked as one team. Our aligned values and close collaboration helped embed a strong one team culture.
