Navigating European Markets: A PrestaShop Seller's Payment Guide

Deciding which payment methods to offer can be a daunting task, especially when targeting a pan-European audience. With customers from diverse European countries, each with their unique payment systems, it can be challenging to determine the right approach.

While accepting major international card schemes like Visa, Mastercard, Diners and AMEX is a given, it's equally important to recognize the growing preference for alternative payment methods among European consumers.

Why is it important to offer local payment methods?

Supporting local payment methods when you already have the biggest card schemes on board may seem counter intuitive, but it’s actually nothing but! In most, if not all, European countries local payment methods have emerged and gained a significant share of the online payments market. By being a lot closer to customer needs in each country, local payment methods are able to adapt accordingly and offer customers a seamless payment experience that the big schemes cannot rival. Usually, customers are able to pay in fast and simple ways, without even having to enter their card details, as you will see in the examples below.

Local payment methods

BLIK

With a 60% market share and more than 20 million users, BLIK is a market leader in the Polish market for online payments. It enables customers to confirm transactions using the BLIK app, without using a card or logging in to their bank, thus greatly simplifying the process.

EPS

Supported by a wide variety of banks, EPS is now the most popular bank transfer payment method in Austria. It allows customers to initiate payments directly from their bank accounts, offering a trusted and familiar option, so it’s a must-have if you are targeting that specific market.

Giropay

Highly popular in Germany, Giropay is supported by a wide range of banks. It provides an immediate online payment guarantee to merchants, while giving consumers a simple and efficient way to pay online via their bank account.

iDEAL

It’s the number one online payments brand in the Dutch market, streamlining transactions for both merchants and customers. Consumers enjoy the simplicity of confirming payments via a mobile app, while iDEAL transactions have lower fees for the merchant.

Popular European payment methods

Instead of being prevalent in a specific European market, the following payment methods have millions of users all throughout the continent.

Klarna

Klarna is a market leader in the European Buy now, Pay Later scene that now enjoys great brand recognition. With 150 million Klarna shoppers and substantial payment volume across 45 countries, adding it to your payment option on your PrestaShop shop can provide you with a competitive edge. In fact, by accepting Klarna, you are likely to see higher average order values and increases conversion rates.

PayPal

With PayPal, your PrestaShop store becomes accessible to the tens of millions of users that prefer to use PayPal for their online transactions, expanding your reach globally. Trust in your business grows as customers recognize PayPal's reliability and ease of use, which in turn can bring a strong boost to your sales.

Sofort

Sofort is a widely trusted payment method, serving more than 85 million users in 13 countries. It offers speed and ease of use, allowing customers to log into their preferred bank and complete payments quickly.

Trustly

With its vast reach of 525 million consumers and connections to 6.3 thousand banks, Trustly facilitates seamless bank transfers across Europe. Customers get to experience a secure payment experience within a Trustly-hosted website, where they can authorize a transaction without manually entering their card details.

Digital Wallets

Additionally, you are certainly missing out if you aren’t supporting the acceptance of digital wallet payments, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Despite having emerged fairly recently, those payment methods have become a key player in the e-commerce payments landscape, now boasting hundreds of millions of users.

How to support all the payment methods above

Of course, it’s not easy for a single person support all the payment methods we mentioned into their PrestaShop store, but it’s very easy for anyone to integrate with the Viva Wallet Smart Checkout for PrestaShop module. It supports 34+ payment methods and Viva Wallet is continually updating it with new features and payment options.

Lastly, by going with Viva Wallet you can tap into a series of unique benefits, like next day settlement and a free digital debit card. More importantly, though, you can drop your acceptance fees all the way down to 0%, by using your Viva Wallet debit card to pay for your expenses.