Shoppers leave when the payment step does not match how they pay, not only when a logo is missing
The headline figure in Adyen’s Retail Report 2024 is that 55% of consumers will abandon a purchase if they cannot pay how they want. The research behind it is large. Censuswide polled 38,151 consumers in 25 countries, the Netherlands and Belgium among them, and 13,177 businesses, with fieldwork between 15 January and 1 February 2024. The findings are therefore close to three years old and were collected before the iDEAL | Wero mark appeared in Dutch checkouts. The direction still holds, but the percentages are a snapshot of early 2024, not a current measurement.
The wording matters more than the number. Paying how you want is wider than finding a method on a list. Adyen places the figure in a section about payment methods, speed and new channels, covering online and in-store alike. A shopper can find the right method and still not pay how they want, because it sits below options nobody uses, opens a screen they did not expect, or asks for card details they have stored elsewhere.
The gap in the report sits on the retailer side
The more useful half of the research is what businesses say they support. According to the report, only 28% accept digital wallets and 17% support BNPL both online and in-store, and just 19% of retailers support one-click checkout online. On the consumer side, 27% say they have stopped carrying a wallet and pay by tapping their phone, and 22% want to finish a purchase in a few clicks with as little typing as possible. Adyen also reports QR code payments growing 11% year on year.
Read together, these figures describe a mismatch in effort rather than in choice. Shoppers want to pay with what is already on their phone or already stored, and many checkouts still ask them to type. The figures also vary by market: the US edition of the same report puts the abandonment figure at 58% and one-click support at 21%. A global average is a starting point for questions, not a description of your shoppers.
In the Netherlands the issue is order and recognition, not quantity
Dutch shoppers arrive at the payment step with a strong habit. The Betaalvereniging reports that iDEAL accounts for 71% of all online purchases, against 8% for credit cards and 5% for direct debits, and that smartphones account for a growing share of payments for online purchases, at 32%. A Dutch checkout without iDEAL is not a realistic case. The realistic failure is quieter: iDEAL is there, but under a label the shopper hesitates over, below methods few of your customers use, or one extra tap away.
That label is changing. Since earlier in 2026 Dutch shoppers see the co-branded iDEAL | Wero mark, and the parties behind the migration aim to complete the move from iDEAL to Wero by 31 December 2027. For the shopper, paying still runs through their own bank. What changes is the name they look for. A shopper who reads iDEAL on the product page, in the footer and in the FAQ, and then meets a different mark on the payment step, has to decide at the last moment whether it is the same thing. Every page that names the method should name it the way the payment step does.
Wallets and BNPL serve specific groups rather than the whole checkout. The 27% who have stopped carrying a wallet pay by tapping their phone, yet online the same person may still meet a form asking for a card number. Which additions matter for you is visible in your own order data: the split between mobile and desktop, basket sizes and the share of returning customers. Add a method because a measurable group of your shoppers reaches for it, and place it where that group looks.
Authentication is part of paying how they want
The report also covers the step after the method is chosen. Early card authentication sent the shopper to a separate bank page to type a static password. Adyen notes that mobile banking and biometrics now make strong customer authentication faster and easier, and that risk management tools can trigger it only for transactions that are in scope. From the shopper’s side, a card payment that ends in an unexpected screen is as much a failure to pay how they want as a missing method.
Check what happens on your payment step when a card is declined or an authentication times out. A shopper who lands on an empty cart has to rebuild the order before trying again. A shopper who returns to the payment step with the order intact and another method in view can still finish the purchase.
Audit by channel and device, not by logo count
The report argues for unified commerce, with every channel connected through one platform, and from the shopper’s side the case is simple. A brand that takes wallets online but not in the shop, or offers instalments in the store but not in its app, gives the same customer two different answers. Map it out: rows for the methods your customers actually use, columns for mobile web, desktop, app and the shop. Mark where each method is offered, where it is preselected, and how many taps it takes from the start of the payment step to a confirmed order.
Then walk the route yourself. On a phone, as a first-time guest, pay with each of the three methods your customers use most, and note every point where you had to scroll, type details you have stored elsewhere, confirm twice or decide whether a logo means what you think it means. Those points are where shoppers who cannot pay how they want leave your checkout, and most of them are fixed by changing order, labels and defaults.
Sources: adyen.com, cdn.nrf.com, betaalvereniging.nl, epicompany.eu
