The right payment methods and technologies and best practices to remove friction from payment processes make up the payment trends for eCommerce and other businesses.
Click2Pay to save costs and reduce fraud risks #
Click to pay (C2P) is not just a new payment method but rather a new standard for online card payments that can save costs (and provide more security).
Click to pay is a payment functionality that allows for an easier payment and checkout experience by initiating a transaction without having to type in any card details. At the same time, it ensures that payment data is not stored with the merchant, reducing compliance requirements and securing the transaction for all parties.
For merchants, this payment functionality is especially interesting, since it can save costs as a very direct payment option.
Agentic Commerce is on the horizon #
The technology to let consumers not only research and compare but also purchase products with their AI agents has already been rolled out in the US and is waiting for a European rollout. For many web shops and eCommerce businesses, this will mark a big change in discoverability. If you can’t enable agentic commerce, you might lose visibility and hand over market share to your competitors.
Watch Visa’s presentation about agentic commerce to see how it works and why you can already start preparing your business with Frisbii and Visa.
Picking the right payment method
According to the annual consumer survey by DHL, 62% of all surveyed users have cancelled a purchase because their preferred payment method wasn’t accepted.
There is no one answer for the right payment methods, since localization, industry and even the type of goods and services can inform what customers prefer. The overwhelming majority of Europeans love to pay with PayPal but this differs from country to country and you might be much better equipped with MobilePay and credit cards in Denmark or Twint in Switzerland.
Read more about the right payment mix in our big beautiful European Payment Guide.
Buy now pay later – is rising popularity #
Buy now pay later (BNPL) is pretty self-explanatory: consumers make a purchase but instead of paying everything all at once, they can pay in increments with the first one being paid immediately and the rest over a defined amount of time (this can range from several months to a year or more). The most popular finance services that deal with BNPL are Klarna, Afterpay or Affirm, however, also other payment providers are offering similar services.
For consumers, this payment method usually has a lot of advantages. It’s easier to get a BNPL loan and many do not have an interest rate (although that has been changing, especially for more expensive products). And according to DHL, around 28% are already using BNPL and 31% are considering adding it to their preferred payment methods.
For merchants and even service providers, however, it has become a competitive and regulatory minefield mainly due to the huge success of BNPL in America but also Europe (James Ledbetter provided a good overview in the New York Times).
So, why did we pick this as a trend? Because oftentimes, seemingly chaotic market changes can lead to disruption and innovation, especially since BNPL is popular among consumers and therefore still has a strong business case. It will be very interesting to see how the service providers for BNPL or even new players will develop their solutions amidst the (now fortunately waning) inflation and increasing calls for regulations. We will definitely keep an eye on this topic.
Digital Wallets are closing in on credit and debit cards #
Although the term can be interpreted in a few different ways, a digital wallet usually is an app that stores payment details (e.g. from your debit or credit card provider) and usually makes it much easier to pay in-store but also online. E.g., in store, you could easily pay by swiping your smartphone over the payment gadget of the store. Online, you can usually forego a lot of time-consuming data forms by simply logging into the app (if the merchant enables it) which then provides the merchant with the card, invoicing and delivery information.
Security measures are usually touch, fingerprint or face ID for smartphones and two-factor authentication for desktop apps. Furthermore, the card details themselves are not stored in the app, so you can keep your card safely at home.
In many countries, digital wallets are already quite popular and can vary a lot depending on the country and its relationship with digitalization. For example, Apple Pay has been widely used in Scandinavian countries, whereas German consumers flock to PayPal. However, depending on your core markets, it – pardon the pun – pays to research the most popular methods and offer them in your online shop.
And their influence is rising. DHL found that 58% of surveyed consumers are currently using digital wallets (compared to 76% using credit/debit cards) and 24% plan to use them (compared to 14% for credit/debit cards).
Local payment methods provide security #
At Frisbii, localization is a big topic that we often talk about but it is worth repeating because any company that has ever tried to expand to other markets knows how challenging it can be due to different economies, cultures, infrastructures and customer behaviors. With the many advantages of the digital transformation and its global potential, companies need to be aware that there’s no “one size fits all”-solution.
From different payment regulations to data security topics up to consumer preferences for specific payment methods – localization is key to unlock a market’s potential and it’s often a question of culture.
For example, to move into the Scandinavian markets, it is quite possible to keep an English website and offer state-of-the-art payment methods. But as very digital countries, they do have their own versions of mobile payments and digital wallets, so it could make a big difference to not just offer PayPal and Apple Pay but also MobilePay etc.
For France, the majority of French consumers will prefer a website in their own language and they prefer to pay with credit card but also use online payment services.
And for the German market, not only would you need German websites but also offer more traditional payment methods since German consumers are still clinging to their debit cards and on-bill-payments. In fact, a report from 2021 by the Deutsche Bundesbank stated that only 3% of German consumers use mobile payments (however, it is more than likely that this number has increased in the last two years).
Acquirer choices for optimal payment fees and rerouting options #
Most payment gateways come with set acquirer contracts and payment options. This usually means that you don’t have to apply for different acquirer agreements but it also means that you have next to no control over the exact acquirer and the payment methods that acquirer offers.
As an acquirer-agnostic payment gateway, Frisbii supports merchants with the right choice of their acquirer, which has several advantages:
- More control over local and global payment options
- More control over payment fees (which can result in high savings)
- Automated rerouting to an alternative acquirer in case of downtime
Find out more about merchant acquirers. Or learn, how Frisbii actively supports you with your payment acquirer agreements.
Or check out, why the Danish fashion company Trendhim prefers more control over their acquirers in our success story.
Cyber security & trust #
Anyone even remotely interested in tech news has read about the stark increase in cyber-criminal activities, nowadays also enabled by the use of AI and automation. From fraud to phishing up to hacking for ransom, many cyber-attacks have led the tech news this year.
For companies, this means that they need to make sure their payment solutions are up to all security standards and maybe even provides features that can further secure payment data such as credit card tokens.
Another side-effect of these cyber-attacks is that companies need to make sure to enable their consumers (e.g. by informing them about phishing emails and creating processes that can’t be easily confused with malware) and also avoid suspicion due to gaps in the user experience.
According to a Radial study from 2023 almost every second consumer would abandon their online cart if they feel that the company asks too many sensitive questions or seems to lack website security.
Sometimes, these feelings are based on simple things such as a lack of seamless branding. Oftentimes, consumers can get confused when a checkout section looks widely different from the rest of an online shop. A native inclusion of the payment gateway generates more trust as do payment options that are more trusted due to card tokenization or secure authentication.
Be on top of all payment trends with the Frisbii payment gateway. We offer more than 50 payment methods, are based in Europe and enable an easy and intuitive onboarding.
