French Bedroom and Zopa: Less complexity, sharper pricing

French Bedroom, a UK bedroom furniture retailer with a showroom in Haywards Heath, replaced six separate payment connections with one Zopa Payments integration. Settlement is now within 48 hours, down from 3–4 days, and the team has one portal in place of several dashboards. 

At a glance

Every time customers wanted a new way to pay, French Bedroom added another provider: cards, PayPal, Klarna, Clearpay, direct banking and a retail finance connection. Each one meant another account, another interface and more testing on every platform release. 

French Bedroom moved to Zopa Payments two years ago and one integration replaced all six. Settlement dropped from 3–4 days to within 48 hours, multi-provider testing went, and when French Bedroom asked for a £10 minimum on buy now, pay later (BNPL) purchases, Zopa implemented it within days. 

The challenge: a growing stack, a growing overhead

French Bedroom has been selling bedroom furniture and interior lifestyle products for nearly 20 years. Founded with a passion for French-inspired design, it has grown from a boutique specialist into an omnichannel business, selling through its website and from its showroom in Haywards Heath, West Sussex. 

As the business grew and customer payment preferences diversified, keeping pace meant onboarding multiple separate providers, many with their own software interface: card processing with one provider, a PayPal integration, separate software for Klarna and Clearpay, direct banking options, and another connection to their retail finance partners.  

Each new capability added complexity. Every platform update meant exhaustive testing across every provider, because a broken checkout is not an option. 

For a premium brand with a discerning customer base, that was a growing operational and financial cost the business simply had to absorb.  

Why the old setup wasn’t enough

Ben Cons had been evaluating the payments market actively for years. Starting with a traditional bank relationship, he moved progressively towards specialist providers as the market matured, always with pricing and operational efficiency as the primary criteria. 

But each new provider still meant another account, another interface and another thing to test. 

French Bedroom needed a way to: 

• Replace a fragmented stack with one integration 

• Cut testing and maintenance overhead on every release 

• Get sharper pricing and faster settlement 

Why Zopa: one module instead of six

Zopa Payments offered a single unified module that could replace the fragmented stack entirely, with pricing sharper than anything French Bedroom had seen before. 

That meant: 

• One unified module covering the full spectrum of payment options 

• Sharper pricing than French Bedroom had seen before 

• Faster settlement to support cashflow 

• Access to the senior team and a real voice in the product  

Zopa Payments replaced the multi-provider set-up with a single integration, replacing separate connections for cards, PayPal, Klarna, Clearpay, direct banking and retail finance. 

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What set Zopa apart was their unique ability to encompass the full spectrum of payment options with razor sharp pricing and faster settlement than we've ever had from any PSP before.

Ben Cons

Owner and Company Director, French Bedroom

The relationship: a partner that actually listens

Equally important was the relationship on offer. French Bedroom gained access to the senior team and valued the ability to give product feedback, knowing it would actually be heard. 

When a new edge case emerged, with two customers attempting to buy £4 samples using BNPL in the same week, French Bedroom raised it directly. A minimum BNPL threshold of £10 was implemented within days. 

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We asked Zopa to implement a minimum threshold for BNPL and they did it. That kind of responsiveness – and the access to the senior team to actually give that feedback – is something we've never had from a payments provider before.

The impact: faster settlement, a single view, less to maintain

Settlement time dropped from 3–4 days to within 48 hours, a direct improvement to cashflow on a premium-ticket product range. 

The results included: 

• Settlement within 48 hours, down from 3–4 days 

• 6 payment modules reduced to 1, cutting complexity, risk and maintenance cost 

• No more multi-provider testing on every release cycle 

• One portal with clear, granular visibility of every transaction and settlement batch, replacing multiple dashboards with a single source of truth 

• Two years of partnership with Zopa 

Looking ahead: a roadmap built for what’s next

What sets Zopa apart, in Ben's view, is not just the product today. It's the orientation towards what's coming. 

Pricing, reliability, responsiveness and a roadmap built for what's next: that's the combination French Bedroom was looking for in a payments partner. 

The takeaway for merchants

French Bedroom didn't need more payment providers. They needed one that could do it all, at the right price. By moving to Zopa they: 

• Replaced 6 payment modules with 1 

• Cut settlement to within 48 hours 

• Gained one portal and one source of truth 

• Got a direct line to the senior team 

For retailers with a premium product range, finding a payments partner that delivers on pricing, reliability, responsiveness and a roadmap built for what's next is not something to take lightly. French Bedroom found that combination with Zopa. 

Up next: See how PSCL Beds uses Zopa Payments and Retail Finance