Hamburg-based secondary market research firm yStats.com has published a new report highlighting the development of alternative payment methods in global online shopping. The publication, “Global Alternative Online Payment Methods: Full Year 2015”, reveals that although credit card remains the leading online payment method, the global share of alternative payments is predicted to grow.
Credit card remained the leading online payment method on a global scale in 2015, according to the research findings cited in a new report by yStats.com. This method was used by a vast majority of online shoppers in major B2C E-Commerce markets such as the USA, Japan, South Korea, the UK, France and others. However, alternative online payment methods are popular in many emerging markets and as these markets’ share of global B2C E-Commerce is rising, the share of alternative online payments will rise.
In Asia-Pacific, where credit cards rank behind third-party online payment services in the region’s largest online retail market, China, alternative payment methods had more than 50% of the market in 2014 and were predicted to further increase their dominance in the near future. Also in Asia’s smaller developing B2C E-Commerce markets, such as India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, various alternative payment methods, such as cash on delivery and bank transfers, were more popular among online shoppers than bank cards. The new report by yStats.com further reveals that in many of the countries in the Middle East and Africa cash on delivery ranked first in use by online shoppers in 2015.
Europe is an example of varying degrees of popularity of alternative payment methods and credit cards both in advanced and emerging markets. In Germany, payment by invoice and PayPal were the two leading online payment methods in 2015, while in the Netherlands, local banking method iDEAL had the largest share of the online payment market. By contrast, in some emerging Eastern European markets, including Turkey and Greece, online shoppers used credit cards more than alternative payment methods such as cash on delivery and bank transfer.
Overall, the research findings of yStats.com indicate that the online payment landscape is expected to remain dynamic as global B2C E-Commerce continues to grow, with online shoppers’ preferences regarding the use of credit cards and alternative payment methods remaining diverse.
