Singapore consumers want simpler online payments to overseas merchants: Survey

SINGAPORE – Consumers face friction when they buy items online from overseas merchants, according to a new survey.

Almost 80 per cent of Singaporeans feel the process of paying for goods and services online from international sellers should be simpler, showed the survey of 1,000 Singaporeans aged 18 and over conducted in June.

Merchants find it difficult to identify payment methods that best cater to customers and to determine what prices to set across various currencies, said Ms Eeke de Milliano, head of global product at payments giant Stripe, which commissioned the survey.

“You don’t want to show your customers a hundred payment methods when they are checking out,” she said. “You want to give them the one – or the two or three payment methods – that are most relevant to them.”

Firms can look at factors such as the customer’s location, basket size or past payments to determine the methods that work best, said Ms de Milliano, who was speaking at Stripe’s annual conference in Singapore on Aug 28. 

Currency conversion is another challenge for merchants, she noted, adding: “It’s complicated to manage your FX (foreign exchange); rates are constantly fluctuating, and it’s hard to know what amount to show to your customers.”

Stripe launched an adaptive pricing feature in August that allows firms to present prices in local currencies to buyers in more than 150 countries. The company also offers an artificial intelligence-powered solution that determines the payment methods a business should offer to a customer.

Merchants will likely benefit from paying more attention to shoppers’ preferences. Not being able to pay with a preferred payment method deters 65 per cent of Singaporeans from buying from international sellers, according to Stripe’s survey, which was conducted by YouGov.

But consumers are hopeful. As cross-border shopping becomes the norm, 67 per cent of consumers here expect that their purchasing preferences are less likely to be affected by a seller’s geography by 2030.

Asia is emerging as the global leader in digital trade innovation and growth, said Stripe, noting that 25 per cent, or US$958 billion (S$1.25 trillion), of global digital trade is exported from the region.

Stripe’s cross-border payment volume in Asia rose 30 per cent year on year in 2023, outstripping the global average digital trade growth of 6.8 per cent.

The company said on Aug 28 that it has partnered payment service provider NicePay to allow US merchants to accept payments from South Korean customers.

Stripe also expects to expand its coverage of local payment methods in Indonesia in 2025.

Payment modes like QR codes and credit cards continue to be popular, but customers are changing where they interact with brands, said Ms Sarita Singh, Stripe’s regional head and managing director for South-east Asia, India and Greater China.

Shoppers are increasingly going beyond online sites to also use messaging platforms like WhatsApp to buy products, she added.

“We use WhatsApp all day, every day, for all sorts of purposes. So all we’re doing is we’re moving our social behaviour more into the commercial space,” noted Ms Singh.

Customers usually chat with a merchant on a messaging app and pay elsewhere, she added, but the shopping experience has now become more seamless as payment solutions are embedded in these apps.

WhatsApp has allowed users in Singapore

to pay local businesses using an in-chat feature

since May 2023. This allows individuals and businesses to buy and sell directly on the app without having to go to a website, open another app or pay in person.

The region has also seen rapid adoption of buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans, especially among Gen Z shoppers, said Ms Singh.

She noted: “If you think about all the different ways BNPLs can offer their services – it can be over a longer period of time, it can be on an instalment basis – all of these ways are suiting a multitude of different users who traditionally may not have been able to participate in a lot of e-commerce.”