Regional payments can be complex. Breaking down regional payment barriers starts with meeting consumers’ preferred payment methods and needs regardless of where they live or travel. Right now, global retail e-commerce sales are on par to reach $8.1 trillion by 2026. Still, retailers must consider consumers’ payment preferences – which are as diverse as consumers themselves – to take advantage of this growth.
So, how can retailers take the intricacy out of offering localized payment options, meet consumers’ payment needs and eliminate barriers along the way? There are three key steps retailers should consider.
Payments have come a long way over the last few decades. Retailers have seen new payment methods like open banking, digital wallets, crypto and more permeate the market. Cash is no longer always king, and given higher interest rates on credit cards – with more hikes to come – global consumers’ payment preferences are diversifying from region to region. Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia have seen some of the fastest growth in digital payments.
For example, while cash still reigns supreme in Africa and continues to create the potential for digital payments due to demographic trends and high levels of internet penetration, Asia Pacific has the fastest cashless transaction volume and is on par to grow by 109% by 2025. More than two-thirds of US consumers expect to have a digital wallet within two years. Add to this, Open Banking has increased in the UK in part due to the region’s sophisticated technology stacks, and it’s easy to see consumers’ payment preferences drastically change depending on location.
Knowledge is only power when retailers put data into action, however. A progressive payment mindset requires utilizing regional payment data to diversify and optimize the checkout process. If a consumer is in China, this may mean offering Alipay. Alternatively, if the buyer is in the US, the end payment option the consumer sees should be ApplePay or GooglePay. Regardless, knowing the statistical data means delivering on the promise of a customized and streamlined checkout experience.
With nearly 1 out of 5 shoppers abandoning their cart due to a long or complicated checkout process, retailers must optimize their checkouts and offer all the payment methods consumers demand – otherwise, they are doomed to fail. While adding new payment methods can be laborious given that hundreds of payment methods, currencies and processors exist, it doesn’t have to be complicated – on the contrary.
Retailers can orchestrate payments through a payment orchestration platform (POP) equipped with an orchestration layer. An orchestration layer optimizes payment processing at each stage of the payment flow for online transactions, minimizing the number of failed transactions due to technical issues. Orchestrating and adding payment methods also becomes easy, as retailers can forgo months of coding work needed to implement just one new payment type. POPs and orchestration layers also enable easy integration of all payment types, all in one place, without having to work with individual payment service providers or their proprietary APIs.
As a result, retailers gain the ability to maximize payment conversion and add multiple payment providers while diversifying and optimizing the customer checkout experience. More importantly, retailers can deliver the payment options consumers demand, where and when they want them because payment optionality will no longer be an issue.
Payment orchestration platforms are a catalyst to offer regional payment methods, but more is needed to eliminate all challenges. The right type of POP must also be employed, which means taking advantage of cloud-native POPs.
The right cloud POP provides the technology needed to allow a retailer to test varying payment methods and route them to various endpoints based on transaction value and the regional location of a customer – improving the checkout experience at the back end. Even better, a cloud-based POP enables front-end payment orchestration where retailers can effectively filter and direct payment options offered at checkout based on a consumer’s shopping cart or previous transactions.
A cloud-native POP also enables retailers to easily connect, test and deploy processors and alternative payment methods to ensure customers always have access to the regional payment methods they demand. Cloud-native POPs open a world of opportunities for retailers to personalize the consumer checkout, scrap their old payment strategies and make ‘sweet music’ out of regional payments to win at e-commerce success.
If you’re a merchant looking to grow internationally and you’re interested in learning more about payment orchestration, download our eGuide, ‘IaaS vs. SaaS: An e-commerce merchant’s guide to payment orchestration’, to discover which platform is best for your needs – including building a payment orchestration layer in-house.
This article first appeared on Retail Touchpoints
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