Online retailers are continuing to lose out on sales by failing to address customers’ preferred payment methods. According to research by PPRO Group, one of the fastest growing global FinTech providers, 67% of UK consumers have abandoned an online retail transaction due to the payment process, only down 1% in the past four years from 68% in 2014. With the biggest reasons cited as 22% didn’t recognise the payment process up from 6%.

However, there have been some improvements in checkout processes; previously over half (57%) abandoned the payment process due to it being too complicated, four years later this has reduced to 21%. Yet, a quarter still abandon processes as the retailer doesn’t offer the option the pay the way they want to.

Consumers increasingly expect a variety of payment methods to be made available when they shop online, in fact this demand is up 10% in the past four years to 90%. Yet 15% claim their expectations aren’t met and 77% stated they would not be happy to pay for goods online if they only accept payment methods they hadn’t heard of. The statistics demonstrate that retailers must align their checkout processes with customers preferred payment methods. For example, half of UK consumers state that PayPal (is their most popular method of online payment, while more unfamiliar methods, such as Direct Debit at 3% up from 0.3% and e-wallets at 1%, are creeping into the UK market for the first time.

“Payment methods play a huge part in the online customer journey and all it takes is one bad experience in a first transaction with a new retailer and a potentially loyal customer is easily lost to a competitor. The first step to securing consumer confidence and driving sales as well as global business growth, is to understand the culture of payments. Not only must the website be designed with the customer journey in mind to make it easy to navigate, but if the customer reaches the checkout and their preferred payment isn’t available, all that investment to get them to the site in the first place is wasted,” comments Jack Ehlers, Director of Payment Partnerships at PPRO Group.

“By removing the boundaries and complexities of Alternative Payment Methods, consumers can ultimately buy what they want, where they want and how they want, increasing opportunities for retailers. If these barriers aren’t addressed, the future for new online retailers is severely limited,” adds Ehlers.