Local Payment Methods Lower APAC Cart Abandonment by 32%

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is poised to become a key area of expansion for U.S. and U.K. merchants over the course of the next few years, but eCommerce companies are struggling with high cart abandonment rates and seeking ways to lower abandonment.

This is analyzed in the study “The Emerging APAC Opportunity,” a PYMNTS and Citcon collaboration, based on a survey of 500 business leaders in North America and the U.K.

As the study states, “There is no one-size-fits all approach to boosting cross-border conversion, but merchants can implement one innovation to boost their chances with APAC shoppers: payments localization. International merchants that offer APAC shoppers localized payments experiences reduce their cart abandonment risk by an impressive 32%.”

Payment localization is an effective strategy being used in regions worldwide. In the context of this report, it’s about giving APAC shoppers the chance to pay with the methods they use every day, from Rakuten in Japan to WeChat Pay and Alipay in China to Kakao Pay in South Korea.

Looking specifically at the cart abandonment issue, we find that merchants understand there’s a problem but don’t necessarily know that localization is the best solution.

“Most merchants agree that the most pressing problems preventing them from converting would-be APAC customers all pertain to cost, payments or some combination of both,” per the study. “Unexpected shipping costs represent the most common factor that merchants believe drives APAC shoppers to abandon their carts by far.”

We found that 54% of all merchants and 60% of all merchants that sell to APAC customers attribute abandoned carts to potential customers being put off by such costs, especially when these costs are retroactively added to prices presented at the eCommerce point of sale. Similarly, 39% of all merchants and 37% of those selling to APAC customers believe that their customers abandon their carts because they simply found the same or similar products for less elsewhere.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: 34% of all merchants we surveyed and 47% of surveyed merchants selling to APAC customers believe shoppers abandon their carts either because they cannot use their preferred payment methods or because they have payment security concerns.

Get your copy: The Emerging APAC Opportunity