smartport: 48% fewer chargebacks, 73% higher conversion rate
Ecommerce
Partner: SaaS
increase in conversion rate
decrease in chargebacks
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“Out of all PSPs, Mollie is by far the best payment service provider. Whenever there were questions, Mollie always took care of things.”
Patrick Scherzinger, Co-Founder & CEO @ smartport
About smartport
What started with used AirPods and a long road trip to Italy quickly evolved into a fast-growing marketplace for consumer electronics. Today, smartport sells smartphones and electronic devices with a clear focus on scalability, fast inventory turnover, and an optimised customer journey.
“We wanted a product that everyone needs, and that works all year round,” explains Patrick Scherzinger, Co-Founder & CEO at smartport.
The first sales initially happened via eBay and other marketplaces. But it quickly became clear that traditional platforms like Amazon or eBay may provide reach, while also bringing significant limitations.
Together, the smartport team decided in early 2025 to build their own Shopify store and, later, their own marketplace solution. smartport now processes between 10,000 and 50,000 orders per month, depending on the season. In the smartphone segment in particular, the average order value is relatively high at around €670.
The challenge: high risks, low margins, and limited flexibility
Margins in consumer electronics are tight, while risks such as fraud, chargebacks, and payment holds are especially high. smartport experienced this firsthand early on. “eBay occasionally froze our funds as well,” Patrick recalls.
Other payment providers also repeatedly caused problems through high reserves, slow payouts, or a lack of direct support contacts. “Our previous PSP was extremely exhausting for smaller merchants,” Patrick explains. “You can’t really talk to them.”
Fraud became especially critical for high-ticket products like smartphones. Due to missing or inflexible risk settings, smartport regularly lost money through credit card fraud. “Where would you rather commit fraud than with smartphones? It’s the perfect product for fraud,” Patrick says openly.
At the same time, their Shopify setup increasingly reached its limits. Certain checkout features and customer account processes could only be customised to a limited extent. “We wanted customer accounts similar to Amazon, where customers can handle as much as possible themselves,” Patrick explains.
Together with the agency Compaytence, smartport developed its own tech stack to create scalable processes for the long term, including custom customer accounts, proprietary marketplace logic, and a fully customizable checkout. “Without Compaytence, the online shop probably wouldn’t exist in its current form,” Patrick says in retrospect.
Kristin Stüwe-Ueberle from Compaytence supported the project closely from the beginning. “In many situations, we were basically the firefighters,” Kristin says with a laugh about the intense setup phase.
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The solution: Mollie as a scalable payment partner
Compaytence recommended Mollie early on, primarily because of the personal support and flexible collaboration. “Compaytence quickly told us: Mollie is great because Mollie is personal and you can actually talk to them,” Patrick recalls.
The onboarding process was simple and fast. Together with Compaytence, Mollie helped smartport optimise risk settings, settlement times, and payment processes specifically for their business model. “Super uncomplicated,” Patrick summarises about getting started with Mollie.
One of the most important factors for smartport was checkout flexibility. Thanks to the custom tech stack, smartport and Mollie were able to implement functions that would only have been possible to a limited extent in a standard Shopify checkout, such as individually positioned express checkout buttons or fully customizable customer account processes.
Mollie also played a key role in risk management. “We had far more fraudulent orders with Shopify Payments,” Patrick says.
Direct communication was especially important for smartport. “Out of all PSPs, Mollie is by far the best payment service provider,” Patrick says. “Whenever there were questions, Mollie always took care of things.”
Kristin Stüwe-Ueberle also highlights the close collaboration: “With Mollie, we were able to solve many topics extremely quickly, especially when it came to risk reviews, settlement times, or technical questions,” she explains.
Together with Mollie and Compaytence, smartport later also developed its own marketplace solution that allowed external merchants to integrate directly into the platform. The company benefited not only from the technical possibilities, but also from the direct communication with the Mollie team. “If I messaged our contact person at Mollie in the morning, we would usually be on a call by the afternoon,” Patrick explains.
“If I messaged our contact person at Mollie in the morning, we would usually be on a call by the afternoon.”
Patrick Scherzinger, Co-Founder & CEO @ smartport
The result: fewer chargebacks, higher conversion, more growth
Through the new tech stack, the proprietary marketplace, and the partnership with Mollie, smartport significantly improved several core KPIs. According to Patrick, the conversion rate increased by 73% after switching to the new infrastructure. The main drivers were the optimised checkout, individually tailored customer journeys, and express checkout functionality.
The impact is particularly visible in fraud prevention: the chargeback rate for credit card payments decreased by 48%. “Before that, we lost a huge amount of money due to fraud chargebacks,” Patrick explains. Thanks to individually configurable risk settings and improved 3D Secure processes, smartport was able to significantly reduce problematic orders.
At the same time, Mollie ensures that growth is not slowed down by payment restrictions — a crucial factor for smartport. “Mollie actually understands what Black Friday means,” Patrick says. While other providers often react to sudden revenue spikes with additional holds or reserves, smartport was able to process large volumes reliably with Mollie.
Klarna is particularly important in this context: around 40% of all payments are now processed through the payment method. For smartport, it’s therefore not just about the technology, but above all about the partnership itself. “With Compaytence and Mollie, everything simply worked hand in hand,” Patrick summarizes.
Looking ahead to the future
Smartport's ambitions extend far beyond its current growth trajectory. With a custom-built marketplace, a highly optimized checkout experience, and a scalable payment setup powered by Mollie, the company is focused on expanding its platform and entering new markets across Europe.
A key priority will be continuing to improve the customer journey while maintaining strong fraud prevention measures and operational efficiency. As order volumes grow, Smartport wants to ensure that payment processes remain flexible, reliable, and capable of supporting rapid scale without creating unnecessary complexity.
The close collaboration between Smartport, Mollie, and Compaytence will continue to play an important role in that journey. Whether it's launching new payment methods, entering additional markets, or further optimizing conversion rates, Smartport values having partners who can move quickly and provide hands-on support when needed.
As Patrick Scherzinger puts it: “With Compaytence and Mollie, everything worked hand in hand.”
With a strong technical foundation and a payment infrastructure built for growth, Smartport is well positioned to continue scaling its marketplace business in the years ahead.