At a time when cross-border sales are increasingly being targeted as a key growth opportunity for online merchants, new cart abandonment statistics show that expanding into Asia’s fast-growing economies is no easy task.

Even so, for businesses that do decide to make the leap, the inclusion of just one factor — the use of localized payments — is proving to be perhaps the single-largest determinant between success and failure for Western businesses looking to expand in the East.

Exploring the issue, PYMNTS surveyed 500 business leaders in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada for the study “The Emerging APAC Opportunity,” a PYMNTS and Citcon collaboration. The results showed that while shipping costs remain a primary reason why consumers bail on these purchases, payments friction is right behind, turning off potential buyers and causing alarming levels of cart abandonment.

According to the report, 41% of merchants that do not offer localized payment options for their customers in Asia lost 60% or more of their sales to cart abandonment. Add in other pain points, and roughly one-third of merchants said shoppers abandon their carts because of unexpected payment frictions, such as not being able to pay for a purchase using their preferred payment method or due to feelings of concern about security arising from unfamiliar payment methods and sites.

The findings are noteworthy as the research found that 17% of merchants in the U.S. and 16% of those in Canada not yet operating in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are planning to make the move over the next year, and would therefore be wise to consider the pros and cons of not localizing payments for APAC shoppers.

U.K. companies are better represented in the APAC region with 31% already selling there, with U.K. merchants in the study generating 13% of their revenue from cross-border sales originating in the APAC region on average. For these merchants, cart abandonment cuts into established revenue streams and makes payments localization even more urgent.

Failing to provide shoppers in APAC with localized payments, such as Rakuten in Japan, WeChat Pay and Alipay in China and Kakao Pay in South Korea, for example, is costing merchants and sellers, with PYMNTS research finding that cart abandonment is 32% higher for merchants not offering localized payments in a region primed for eCommerce growth.

“Forty-one percent of merchants that do not offer localized payments options for APAC shoppers lose 60% or more of their sales to cart abandonment,” the study found. “Among merchants that do offer localized payments options for APAC shoppers, just 32% report losing 60% or more of their sales to cart abandonment.”

Partnering for Higher APAC Conversions

eCommerce firms in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada are starting to understand the power of payments localization and the benefits it brings. Many are partnering accordingly.

In addition to local methods being preferred by APAC shoppers — something PYMNTS also find when researching other emerging markets from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to Latin America — there are clear benefits when processing payments through platforms that have expertise with localized payments.

“Reliability, high authorization rates and reputation can also influence merchants’ payment provider choices,” the study stated, noting that 49% of merchants “cite reliable payment processing as a factor driving their choice in payment provider, for example, while 46% cite high authorization rates and 43% cite a solid reputation. All three of these factors take heightened importance for firms looking to expand their APAC presences.”

For these reasons, PYMNTS found more merchants choosing payments partners that support localization with gateway integrations that enable local payments choice at checkout.

The data showed that over half (55%) of merchants selling to APAC consumers select their payment providers based on the range of payment methods they offer, with 62% seeking providers that offer reliable payment processing services in the region.

See also: CITCON CEO Sees Stronger Companies Forged in Troubled Times

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.

Payments FinTech Bolt Financial and crypto startup Wyre Payments are remaining business partners but have decided to scrap the $1.5 billion merger plans announced in April. 

“Bolt remains a strong believer in crypto and a supporter of Wyre,” Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla said in an email to PYMNTS. “We will continue our existing commercial partnership with Wyre to pave the path of crypto integration into our ecosystem, bringing Wyre’s innovative crypto infrastructure to the world.”

See also: Bolt to Purchase Crypto Startup Wyre for $1.5B

The deal was originally expected to finalize before the year closed, PYMNTS reported April 7. Bolt was to integrate Wyre’s tech stack and in develop its application programming interface (API) offering, and Bolt’s shoppers would also gain access to several cryptocurrencies, fiat exchanges and compliance solutions. 

While the deal isn’t moving forward, Bolt and Wyre have mutually agreed to continue their partnership as independent businesses with the goal of bringing more innovation to eCommerce and crypto. Remaining as independent organizations allows both companies to focus on their core competencies, according to the statement sent to PYMNTS.

Read more: Bolt Helps Revolve Offer One-Click Checkout at Fashion Week

“Wyre is enthusiastic about continuing its collaboration with Bolt,” said Wyre CEO Ioannis Giannaros. “We’ve already begun integrating Bolt’s technology to help bring 1-click crypto to millions of users within the crypto space. There is so much more innovation ahead.” 

Wyre, a portfolio company of Ether Capital Corporation, will enter into a commercial agreement with Bolt to implement Wyre’s one-click solution for the Bolt customer platform, according to a Monday (Sept. 12) press release.

Ether Capital holds a minority equity interest in Wyre and said it plans to assess the fair market value as part of its third-quarter financial statements. Wyre is considered a non-core, portfolio investment by Ether Capital, per the release.

For all PYMNTS crypto coverage, subscribe to the daily Crypto Newsletter.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Citcon Inc., the leading payment provider enabling global commerce at scale, today reported results of a new global survey of 500 leading merchants in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom revealing the opportunities and challenges of conducting eCommerce in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC). The Emerging APAC Opportunity, developed in collaboration with PYMNTS, reveals that while more than 50% of all APAC eCommerce purchases are abandoned before checkout, merchants agree that accepting local payment options at checkout could reduce that number by half.

APAC countries currently account for nearly three-quarters of total global retail growth, and about two-thirds of online growth. From 2014 to 2019, the compound annual growth rate for APAC retail sales was more than quadruple that of the rest of the world, and online sales growth nearly doubled the rest of the world’s¹. The Emerging APAC Opportunity report underscores the merchant perspective concerning this potential market growth.

• 70% of all merchants surveyed expect APAC sales to increase over the course of the next three years.

• 37% of all merchants anticipate their sales growth to reach or exceed 50%

Still, according to the report, more than half of all eCommerce carts in APAC are currently abandoned prior to purchase, inhibiting this growth potential. Merchants already operating in APAC identified the two primary factors underlying high cart abandonment rates as cost-related factors (60%) and payment friction (47%). While cost factors such as shipping and competitive pricing may often be out of a merchant’s control, reducing payment friction is highly addressable.

• 47% of merchants currently selling to APAC customers believe shoppers abandon their carts because they cannot use their preferred payment method or because they have payment security concerns

• Only 13% of merchants currently selling to APAC customers accept domestic global wallets

• The small minority of merchants that currently offer localized payment options report cart abandonment rates 32% lower than their counterparts that do not

“Merchants recognize the mission-critical role local payments will play in their success in Asia-Pacific markets,” explains Chuck Huang, Founder and CEO of Citcon. “Seventy percent of the global merchants we surveyed predicted that cart abandonment rates could be reduced by half just by offering trusted, local payment schemes to consumers. Expanding payment options to better serve local APAC consumers has the potential to unlock exponential growth for merchants of all types.”

About The Emerging APAC Opportunity Report

The Emerging APAC Opportunity Report was developed by Citcon in collaboration with PYMNTS.com. Findings are based on survey responses from 500 business leaders from global merchants in the United States (350), Canada (50) and the United Kingdom (100) gathered between May 16 and June 28, 2022. Thirty-six percent of firms generated annual revenues of less than $20 million, 35% generated between $20 million and $100 million, and 29% generated more than $100 million in annual revenue. Survey results were tabulated by PYMNTS.com analysts. To access the full report and data tables, please visit: https://www.pymnts.com/study/emerging-apac-opportunity-shopping-ecommerce-local-payments-cart-abandonment

About Citcon

Founded in 2015, Citcon’s fintech platform enables seamless global commerce at scale by connecting the world’s businesses with more than 150+ mobile wallets, including local and alternative payment methods. Citcon integrates with POS and ecommerce systems such as Toshiba, Oracle, Cegid, Shopify and SAP and is currently deployed at more than 30,000 merchant sites and locations, including major brands such as L’Oreal, Tumi, Texas Instruments, Revolve, Macy’s, and Panda Express. In October 2021, Citcon closed a $30MM Series C funding round. The company is backed by leading global investors Norwest Venture Partners, Cota Capital, Sierra Ventures, Sonae, and East-West Bank. Citcon has five regional offices in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia to service its global clientele. Learn more at https://www.citcon.com.

About PYMNTS

PYMNTS.com is where the best minds and the best content meet on the web to learn about “What’s Next” in payments and commerce. Our interactive platform is reinventing the way companies in payments share relevant information about the initiatives that make news and shape the future of this dynamic sector. Our data and analytics team includes economists, data scientists and industry analysts who work with companies to measure and quantify the innovations at the cutting edge of this new world.

Bolt announced the acquisition in April, touting its plan to integrate Wyre’s APIs, which enable simple and secure crypto to fiat payments, into its platform.

However, while the two companies will continue to work together on bringing crypto to Bolt, the acquisition has been canned.

The move comes as Bolt faces up to the tech stocks bonfire. Just weeks after the Wyre deal was announced, the checkout decacorn was forced to lay off a third of its workforce, amounting to 250 people.

UK and EEA merchants can now present ‘Revolut Pay’ as a payment method – alongside the likes of PayPal and Apple Pay – across product, cart, and checkout pages. Shopify, Prestashop, WH Smith and Funky Pigeon are already onboard.

Existing Revolut users can use Revolut Pay and pay via saved cards or directly via their account balance. Non-Revolut users can pay by using saved Mastercard or Visa cards issued by any other providers.

Payments will be validated via features such as Face ID, or fingerprint unlock, and no account number will be shared.

The e-commerce play comes months after Revolut made its move into in-person payments with the launch of a card reader payment terminal.

Nikolay Storonsky, CEO, Revolut, says: “With its speed, convenience, security and low pricing, Revolut Pay gives merchants a competitive advantage in a rapidly growing e-commerce market.

“At Revolut, we constantly strive to make it faster, easier and cheaper for merchants of all sizes to accept payments, wherever they are, and to make it more convenient and secure for customers to pay.”

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

It’s a statement that is especially true for retailers and merchants, we’d add, who also often face the inverse reality since they also never get a second chance to make a last impression.

In short, the point of checkout is the hello and goodbye all wrapped into one, with a delicious filling of purchases, prior shopping history, personal info and payment preferences all rolled into one high-stakes, high-speed function we call checkout.

After all, it is the online checkout that proves to linger in the consumers’ mind, that can, in fact, make the difference between closing the sale and being left with an abandoned shopping cart.

No online business can leave the checkout to chance, to a proverbial coin toss as to whether conversion happens. Increasingly, as so much commerce moves online, the enterprise must re-evaluate what is working and what is not.

The proof is in the data, where an overwhelming majority of consumers surveyed by PYMNTS — 91% of them — have stated that a “satisfying” checkout experience has an impact on their willingness to shop with a merchant again.

The advent of the buy button makes things a bit easier and speedier too. In the “2022 Buy Button Report: Accelerating Checkout Optimization” study, PYMNTS surveyed over 800 online retailers including major players, finding that roughly 80% are now using these quick checkout solutions.

Our data finds that eCommerce checkouts completed via a buy button are 46% faster than those that do not use this feature.

Every second counts in online commerce.

Other Features Are Desired

And there are, of course a number of features that might be regarded as must-haves — let’s call them table stakes — throughout it all.

Among those features, and perhaps no surprise, is payments choice. From the chart below, we can see what matters most, and what the retailers, the eTailers, the merchants must consider — and debit cards are top of mind, and top of wallet right now. And at the moment they are edging out credit cards (by a very slim margin).

If payments choice is a must have, our respondents also pointed the way to the nice to haves that, we’d wager, will become part of the “table stakes” pantheon down the line. Consumers want the ability to to leverage social media into their commerce, and vice versa … clicking links and navigating platforms seamlessly and with aplomb. It’s important to note that price matching is also on the list of features that enhance satisfaction, along with a clear refund policy.

And yet: Many merchants do not offer these checkout features, which bumps up directly against what customers want to have in hand as they navigate the last few moments headed toward clicking the buy button and closing the sale.

US-based checkout technology company Bolt has partnered with fashion retailer Revolve in order to launch a one-link checkout experience for shoppers.

 

The new one-link service is called Checkout Links, and it represents a solution for retailers to enable their shoppers to check out with one click across online and offline experiences. One of the first retailers to implement Checkout Links will be Revolve, and the system will be implemented at Revolve Gallery during Fashion Week in New York from September 9 to 11.

Bolt’s solution will provide shoppers with a QR code that immediately directs them to a pre-populated, Revolve-branded checkout page. The page supports a one-click purchasing experience, which should reduce checkout friction while improving conversion rates.

According to prnewswire.com, Checkout Links can help retailers convert high-intent clients by integrating the system with their brand-owned digital channels. These include blog posts, emails and chat systems, all of which could be used to allow consumers to seamlessly complete their purchases.

As far as physical formats are concerned, Checkout Links could be implemented in IRL shops, interactive signs, or trade shows and events, where users can scan a QR code to purchase items in one click.

Revolve representatives cited by prnewswire.com revealed that they chose Bolt’s Checkout Links because of its potential to extend their storefront presence while complementing their established brand experience.

After Fashion Week, the two entities plan to implement Bolt One-Click Checkout on Revolve’s website.

 

 

Recent developments from Bolt

In April 2022, Bolt Financial revealed that it would acquire crypto-services startup Wyre Payments for around USD 1.5 billion. Wyre offers services for retail and business customers to exchange national currencies and cryptocurrencies between banks and crypto wallets, as well as trading cryptocurrencies. The company has money-transmitter licenses in 27 US states.

In December 2021, US-based checkout and shopper network company Bolt has acquired Tipser, a Sweden-based tech company that provides checkouts and automated front end tools for running e-commerce in any platform.

Building upon Tipser’s technology, Bolt was looking to leverage its turn-key publisher marketplaces, touchless merchant integrations, and headless implementation capabilities in order to enhance Bolt’s Remote Checkout solution. 

By combining forces between Tipser’s technology and Bolt SSO Commerce, Remote Checkout aims to enable publishers to leverage Bolt’s one-click account creation and tap into its network of shoppers.

For eTailers, the checkout experience is decisive in building customer loyalty: New research by PYMNTS shows that 91% of consumers feel a satisfying checkout experience has a substantive impact on their willingness to shop with a merchant again. Merchants that do not offer the features that ensure smooth checkouts will fall behind.

“Building A Better Online Checkout Experience: The Key Features That Matter To Customers,” a PYMNTS and Checkout.com collaboration, explores where and how consumers shop online, providing insight into the ideal checkout experience for a United States consumer. PYMNTS conducted a census-balanced survey of 2,030 U.S. consumers from June 29 to July 6 to discover what shapes the online checkout experience for consumers, including the features shoppers expect and the pain points that reduce customer satisfaction.

• Smooth checkouts meaningfully impact shoppers’ satisfaction and play a key role in building customer loyalty.

Two-thirds of consumers we surveyed said that a quality checkout experience is very or extremely influential on whether they return to an eTailer. Just 9% said that it has little or no impact. Among the shoppers we identified as loyal customers based on purchasing behaviors, approximately three-quarters said that a satisfying checkout strongly affects their willingness to shop at a merchant again.

• Consumers expect multiple checkout features and feel less satisfied when any are missing.

PYMNTS’ research identifies 10 key online checkout features, including social media sign-in and price matching, that eTailers should view as essential to ensuring customer satisfaction. Shoppers who wanted these features but were not offered them in their latest eCommerce transactions were significantly more likely to feel unsatisfied than those who could access the features.

• Consumers have come to expect several specific features that facilitate smooth eCommerce checkouts, including payment method choice and order confirmation.

Nearly three-quarters of consumers used their preferred purchase method during their latest online checkout. More than half of shoppers used nine other ubiquitous features, including easy order confirmation and secure account data storage.

“Building A Better Online Checkout Experience: The Key Features That Matter To Customers” explores where and how consumers shop online, providing insight into the ideal eCommerce checkout experience for consumers.

To learn more about what shapes the checkout experience for online shoppers, download the report.

As the land that gave us buy now, pay later (BNPL), it’s hard to picture Australia as a laggard in digital transformation, but merchants and payments partners there still have dots to connect.

In “The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition,” a PYMNTS and Cybersource collaboration and part of a larger six-nation study of over 13,000 consumers, we asked nearly 2,100 Australian consumers about digital experiences in the country. For the second year running, Australia earned a low index score, largely for frictions still found in shopping and payments.

In an On the Agenda discussion, PYMNTS’ Karen Webster was joined by Brian McGrory, vice president and head, merchant sales and acquiring, Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific at Visa, and Reuven Barukh, CEO at Sydney-based payments service provider Live Payments, as the trio talked over what it will take to get Australia’s index scores up in digital shopping experience.

McGrory pointed to the extant opportunity, noting that Australia’s economy has yet to shake off the COVID-19 jitters.

“I think we’re the nation of lockdowns across the world,” he said. “It has really meant that shoppers in Australia have had to rethink how they shop. I think the click-and-collect phenomena has really started to increase across a broad section of retail categories. There’s lots of advantages, not just for the shopper, but also for the retailer.”

Click-and-collect is Australian for buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), and it’s one of the ways this nation of roughly 25 million people is getting a lift from the digital shift.

With “The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition” finding that 38% of eCommerce shoppers in Australia who used click-and-collect on their most recent eCommerce purchases “often or always bought more products while picking up in-store,” it shows how the ecosystem benefits from digital connections.

Get the study: The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition

McGrory said to optimize this, retailers “really need to think about mobile-first design” in the physical stores as hybrid eCommerce and brick-and-mortar experiences become the norm.

“We are seeing, through the study, that Australian retailers are lagging when it comes to offering this seamless digital experience,” McGrory said, adding that high smartphone usage is changing this.

Barukh spoke up for the little guy, saying, “In the SMB segment, for them to move as rapidly as some of these larger retailers, maybe that’s where the lagging effect is coming into Australia. You’ve got retailers where there’s integrated POS only at 30% of merchants. So, 70% of SMBs are using standalone payment terminals not integrated into their POS systems.”

That offers opacity for inventory management and creates other obstacles to vital functions needed for seamless consumer movement between digital and physical channels, he said.

“Brick-and-mortar retailers are now realizing they also need to have a digital presence,” Barukh said. “Competition is increasing, technology is increasing, and they will have access to that technology promptly and be able to provide similar services to much larger national retailers.”

Good Friction, Bad Friction

Unpacking why the nation that innovated BNPL is falling behind the larger digital transformation, Barukh said some basic fixes need to happen to enable full digital experiences.

Looking to SMBs that generate “the majority of payments volume … here in Australia,” he said, the typical setup is to use one acquirer or merchant service provider for physical stores and another for online experience, “which disenfranchises the ability to provide that frictionless customer experience and switch between online in-store and merge the two together.”

Saying that no single partner could do everything, McGrory still concurred with Barukh in that, “If the retailer’s not used to managing that level of partners — not suppliers, but partners — to be able to deliver these experiences,” it gets complicated and possibly counterproductive.

Which is not to say that all friction is bad friction, even if it does impact one’s index score. “The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition” also found that 38% of the eCommerce shoppers in Australia using click-and-collect for their most recent online purchases often or always bought more products while picking up orders in-store.

See also: 2022 Global Digital Shopping Index Shows Australian Merchants Forced to Play Digital Catchup

“If I’m lined up for 10 minutes [for click-and-collect], I’m not just going to just stand there. I invariably pick up a couple of extra things whilst I’m waiting,” McGrory said, adding that digitally influenced in-store sales make up about five times that of eCommerce purchases.

Barukh said taking full advantage of this hybrid model requires reimagining the entire business: “Put in the right technology, find the right partners, manage those partners and make sure that you have a seamless experience. SMBs in particular are currently lagging in that regard.”

How does he advise going about this?

“Work with acquirers, payfacs, payment service providers that can actually provide you with a true omnichannel experience,” Barukh said. “I want to emphasize as well about making sure that you have wallet technology in your shopping carts, and having one-click checkout. Those simple things can decrease cart abandonment by over 30%.”

Optimizing Hybrid Experience

There is a divide between what enterprise merchants and SMBs can deliver in terms of an omnichannel experience that adds up to happy shoppers and higher index scores, and merchants need a mobile-first mentality to match consumers’ unwavering expectations.

Barukh said Live Payments is “hearing very clearly from independents that when shoppers come in, they view them not very differently to the large national supermarkets. The shoppers are expecting smartphone-enabled technology, loyalty, gifting, scan and go, and all that technology that the larger retailers are bringing to the market.”

Webster noted that digital tech is accomplishing this for smaller operators by leveling the playing field, melding digital tech with the curated experiences SMBs are prized for.

Barukh said that’s still “in an embryonic phase here in Australia. What we see is [shoppers] simplistically view it as merging an online and a brick-and-mortar experience and making sure that customers can engage with them both online and in-store and have a similar experience.”

As more consumers use smartphones as remote controls for connected shopping, things like price matching are helping even the odds, Barukh said, adding, “Price-matching price wars can only go so far and for so long.”

Instead, personalization, customer engagement and service “is more important, but it needs to be on par with the price matching in order to retain customers.”

Partners are of course critical in all of this, especially when it comes to nonnegotiables like payments choice for the digital-centric shoppers of 2022.

Barukh said, “I think it’s the acquirer’s responsibility to provide as many payment types as possible. Payments is moving so rapidly that it’s very difficult for a typical retailer to keep up with the pace and understand what they should be offering to their customers.”

McGrory took it a step further, saying, “There’s the acquirer, there could be a payment facilitator in front of that as well. What we’re are seeing now with the exponential growth in eCommerce is being able to provide all these payment options online is an easier tech and experience to build than if it was all still focused on in-store shopping.”

Both agreed that voice payments and conversational commerce hasn’t yet caught on in Australia as much as it has in some other nations studied, but that’s coming as Australia plays catch up.

Simplifying it somewhat, McGrory said, “Get the strategy right, get the experiences and the competitive position you want to be in, and then go out and look for partners and enabling partners — it’s all about enablement — to be able to help you [experience] for your shoppers.”

In a world where commerce is increasingly global but where markets and consumer preferences are still dominated by national or regional norms, one of the most costly mistakes a multinational retailer can make is not offering local payment options to their customers around the world.

How costly? Well, let’s just say they don’t call it the “silent killer” for nothing.

This, as new data in joint research between PYMNTS and Citcon in “The Emerging APAC Opportunity,” report, shows the gap between merchants’ expectations and what might be a splash of cold water on those hopes.

To get a sense of the gap, consider the fact that of 500 executives surveyed in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, 15% plan to expand into the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in the next year, and 70% of all respondents said they expect APAC sales to increase in the next three years.

And the greenfield opportunity is certainly there, given the relatively low penetration in the region. Less than a quarter of all the companies surveyed already sell into there.

Yet merchants lose more than half of their APAC sales to cart abandonment. Drill down a bit, and merchants that do not offer local payment options in the region have 32% higher cart abandonment rates than merchants that do offer those options. Overall, 25% of the merchants PYMNTS queried stated that shopping cart abandonment in general is due to a lack of payment options.

Looking to Go ‘Local’

Thus, there seems to be at least some recognition that there needs to be retooling of how to approach the market, and one way to do so is to offer more payment options. Getting there can be streamlined a bit by enlisting the aid and the expertise of various payment providers. For the providers themselves, the breadth and scope of their offerings remains critical.

As PYMNTS data shows, payments are central to most merchants’ decisions about their providers. Fifty-five percent of merchants selling to consumers in the APAC region choose their payment providers based on the range of payment methods they offer, while 49% of all merchants across the U.S., the U.K. and Canada cite payments coverage as a reason they would choose one provider over another.

In recent illustration of the challenges and opportunities in the region, and specifically in India, Booking.com Senior Vice President Daniel Marovitz, Leap Finance Founder Arnav Kumar and Cashfree Payments Co-Founder Reeju Datta told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster that as eCommerce grows in that country across all manner of verticals, companies face the challenge of getting the payments mix right.

Read more: Indian Consumers Seek Relief From Cross-Border Education, Travel Payments Friction

Payments aggregators are increasingly important, said panelists, as enterprises would otherwise have to connect and integrate with banks on a market-by-market basis.