Framing the Future: Adorama and Venmo

Adorama began as single retail location on Manhattan’s 34th Street in 1974, offering professional audio, visual, and photography gear to the public. Today, Adorama boasts a range of complementary businesses, including Adorama Rental, Adorama Trade, Printique, Adorama Business Solutions, 42 West, SunnySports, Scuba.com, and Boroughs, a line of guitars exclusive to the Adorama brand.

We had the good fortune of speaking with Hani Batla, CTO/CIO of Adorama, about the company’s future and the challenges of strategically evolving this landmark business.

Success metrics

• $403: Venmo Average Order Value (AOV).*
• Venmo AOV is the highest of all alternative payment methods.*
• 42% of Venmo’s customers are net new.*

Equipping an experience-driven company for a new adventure

Adorama’s journey with PayPal began years ago with the integration of the PayPal wallet and like the company itself, has only expanded. Adorama integrated PayPal’s Braintree for their payment processing in June of 2021, ending a 30-year relationship with their previous processor.

“We’re not focused on transactions,” explains Batla. “Our focus is on helping customers realize their vision, and PayPal is a key enabler of that.”

As Adorama modernized its technology, Braintree provided the innovation necessary to take their payments to the next level. Instead of separate integrations for different payment methods, Braintree facilitated all Adorama’s Alternative Payment Methods (APMs) in a single integration.

This streamlined operation helped identify pain points while offering a single source for reporting and reconciliation. “Braintree was the first core building block in understanding and delivering on our customers’ payment preferences,” noted Batla. “We saw the future of what PayPal could do for us with its complement of products and technologies.”

The next step in their platform expansion was integrating Venmo into the shopping experience. It was a clear and easy decision for Batla, and one that was especially appealing due to the low effort and short lead time needed to integrate. “Why wouldn’t we layer in one of the most popular payment methods known amongst millennials, Gen Z, Gen Y, and Alpha consumers? That was the strategy behind Venmo and making the experience even more ideal and frictionless for them,” emphasized Batla.

The intrinsic value of Venmo’s halo effect

As an early adopter of Venmo, Adorama was able to build upon the platform’s loyal user base and the social status that came with it.

“Because there is so much positive sentiment associated with Venmo, the thought was that we would get a little bit of that halo effect.” This thought proved to be true almost immediately.

Within an hour of going live, more than 60 Venmo transactions were made on the Adorama site. “We’re actively working to ensure we stay relevant to a new generation of consumers and Venmo is essential to that mission.” Batla explained, “If you want your business to be around for the next 20, 30 or 40 years, then you may want Venmo.”

What’s Next

Adorama continues to seek new ways of empowering and equipping creators to push the limits of possibility. In fact, it was Adorama’s innovative use of Instagram stories and creative ways the company was using content in ecommerce that originally drew Batla to the company.

“It was how they were selling things and how they were talking about things. That’s what got my attention,” Batla says.

Adorama is truly invested in their customers’ creative journey and adventurous spirit, providing them with the resources to evolve with the world around them. This includes integration with NFTs, the metaverse, and Bitcoin. From the equipment and graphics cards used to mine Bitcoin, to the VR headset of the metaverse, Adorama supplies the gear to create, while PayPal helps deliver the solutions to keep them growing. Now that’s a picture of success.