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Shoppers in Europe are finding 94% of European e-commerce websites’ checkout pages inadequate, which forces shoppers to abandon their purchases. To enhance the checkout experience, the right solutions must be put to use.
Although e-commerce in Europe is booming, shoppers are experiencing issues with a majority of popular e-commerce websites. As much as 94% of e-commerce websites in Europe have flawed checkout pages, compared to last years’ 58%. Issues like the limited number of popular payment methods offered and lengthy checkout processes force European shoppers to abandon their carts. To enhance the cross-border online shopping experience, suitable local payment options should be one of the priorities.
Issues that cause high shopping cart abandonment are linked with shoppers’ experience during checkout. 21% of shoppers in Europe abandon their purchase if the checkout takes longer than one minute, while 15% leave their online shopping cart when their preferred payment method isn’t available.
These numbers could grow even higher, as the newly formed habits of shopping online have become a part of a daily routine for many European consumers, including the Baltics. 50% of Lithuanians and 74% of Latvians have started shopping online more frequently in 2021. The share of bank card payments made online in Estonia was up to 14%, compared to only 3% five years ago, showing the growing popularity of online shopping in the country. Frank Breuss, CEO, and co-founder of Nikulipe, a Fintech company creating and connecting Local Payment Methods to access Emerging and Fast-Growing Markets, notes that the right local payment methods could solve the issues appearing in the majority of e-commerce checkout pages.
“It all comes down to the right mix of payment methods the merchants offer their target group,” explains Breuss, who recently introduced a local payment option for the Baltics, banklinq. “The preferences in Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia, for example, are very different from those in Poland or Germany. The same goes for the target customer base: a very young customer base might have a preference for a certain selection of payment methods, which is different from what a very broad customer base prefers.”
Breuss notes, however, that while it’s important to offer a selection of the right payment methods, at the same time it is key to offer not too many of them. Confronting a buyer with a large number of options and payment brands to choose from increases the likelihood of purchase abandonment.
Additionally, existing solutions for combating these issues do not always tend to encompass both, the consumer experience at the online checkout, and simplicity and efficiency for the merchants themselves.
“Consumers shouldn’t be forced to think, but have made their shopping experience as easy as possible. That’s why one-product-type solutions, capturing a large number of shoppers’ favorite banks under one button, help to better optimize e-commerce for shoppers and merchants alike. For example, when creating ‘banklinq’ we wanted to integrate a larger number of payment options, so we included challenger banks, which are growing in popularity.”
As more and more shoppers include online shopping in their daily routines, the issues appearing in the majority of popular e-commerce websites’ checkouts lessen customer experiences while shopping. While the issues of lack of suitable payment options and long checkout processes are persistent, they can be solved with suitable payment solutions, which encompass favorite payment options of target markets and customer base.