Europe, the world’s third largest region by B2C e-commerce sales, shows wide diversity in terms of payment methods used in online shopping, according to a report by Hamburg-based secondary research organization yStats.com.
While non-cash payment methods, especially credit cards, dominate in the Western sub-region, cash on delivery and various alternative methods are most used in Eastern European countries. Both sub-regions show potential for mobile payments growth, the report says.
Europe’s largest online market, the UK, was dominated by credit and debit cards in terms of payment methods in 2014, while a quarter of online shoppers dropped the purchasing process if their preferred payment method in not offered. Moreover, over one fourth of Internet users in the UK are interested in using mobile payments, with the mobile payment offerings growing rapidly in second half of 2014.
In Germany, PayPal and express checkout methods were gaining a larger share of B2C e-commerce payments in the second half of 2014, and Amazon offered “Login and Pay” method. Invoice remained the leading payment method in German online sales, while PayPal increased its share.
The payment method used the most by online shoppers in France was “Bank Card” at the beginning of 2014, followed by “Online Payment Service”. The ecosystem for mobile payments is developing rapidly, while adoption by consumers is still to take off.
In many other Western European markets, including Italy and Spain, credit card remained the dominant method. However, several countries have own specifics: in the Netherlands, for example, local banking method iDEAL accounts for more than half of all online purchases and in Sweden payment against invoice is used more than credit card in B2C e-commerce.
In Russia, cash remained the most used payment method in online shopping, while alternative payments showed dynamism in the second half of 2014 payments made through online banking grew, PayPal started accepting cash payments through stores, terminal payments and E-Wallet company Qiwi held SPO raising EUR 60 million and another popular wallet Yandex.Money cooperated with Alibaba’s Aliexpress. (GK)
