Western Merchants Deeply Lacking Knowledge About APAC Payments

Local FinTech wallets are a key part of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) eCommerce ecosystem. Whether Alipay in China, Paytm in India, Kakao Pay in South Korea or Rakuten in Japan, shoppers are accustomed to using local wallets to transact in their everyday lives.

So why do just 1.8% of merchants think that APAC shoppers even want to use local wallets?

In “The Emerging APAC Opportunity: Local Payments Edition,” a collaboration with Citcon PYMNTS surveys 500 business leaders from eTailers across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada for an inside look at how payments are factoring into their APAC strategies — and how misperceptions about APAC payments are hurting their bottom lines.

Key findings from our research include the following:

• Cart abandonment rates are 32% higher among APAC merchants that do not offer localized payment options. APAC cart abandonment hits omnichannel merchants hardest: 41% of these merchants believe that failing to provide local customers’ desired payment options, including those common within APAC consumers’ home countries, is causing their eCommerce shoppers to abandon carts.

• Merchants with localized payment choices generate 9% more APAC revenue on average than merchants without these choices — and many generate even more. Specialty eTailers that offer localized payment options for APAC customers generate 22% more in regional revenue than those that do not offer localized payment options.

• Just 13% of merchants across the U.S., the U.K. and Canada that sell to APAC customers offer localized wallets, despite these wallets’ importance to local shoppers. An even more astounding statistic, just 1.8% of these merchants believe that APAC customers want to use such localized methods, and more than one-quarter incorrectly believe that APAC consumers want to use global credit and debit cards.

Those are only some details of our extensive research into cross-border merchants’ APAC expansion plans. “The Expanding APAC Opportunity Playbook: Local Payments Edition” details how misconceptions about APAC payment preferences limit merchants’ APAC growth potential.

To learn more about how misunderstanding the APAC payment market is cutting into international merchants’ bottom lines, download the report.