What’s Your Customer’s Preferred Payment Method?

Imagine you want to purchase something from your favorite brand’s website but when you get to the checkout screen, the price is in a foreign currency and the only payment methods accepted are unfamiliar debit and credit cards or a bank transfer.

That is the reality for many international shoppers when trying to purchase online from American retailers. Often they can only pay in U.S. dollars, using only Visa, Mastercard, or PayPal. The result: a less than desirable customer experience and, ultimately, shopping cart abandonment.

Introducing localized payment methods

For one retailer we work with, the demographics of its shoppers in the UK and Germany were similar but sales conversions for German shoppers were two and a half times less than their British counterparts. Analysis of transaction data revealed that 75 percent of the company’s German shoppers were abandoning checkout at the payment page—even after they had already spent time filling in all the delivery details. The retailer offered the same payment methods for both the UK and German shoppers; however, these payment methods were not the preferred means of payment in Germany.

Once this retailer enabled the payment methods preferred by Germans—ELV (electronic direct debit from German banks), Sofort, GiroPay, and PayPal—conversion rates increased significantly and cart abandonment decreased dramatically. The introduction of country-specific payment methods almost doubled checkout sales figures for this company.

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eShopWorld is a leader in Global eCommerce and Logistics Management, with the only modular solution that gives online retailers control over the end-to-end customer journey – from global checkout to returns.