The most popular payment methods in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

If you have already set up an online store and still experience shopping cart abandonment, you may be wondering where these abandonments come from.

Probably one of the most common reasons for shopping cart abandonment, is the lack of the preferred payment method. In this article you will learn more about shopping cart abandonment.

But let's face it, adding payment methods means a certain amount of work in every respect. Especially for smaller online stores, this is not possible or even difficult. For this reason, we would like to inform you in this article about all given payment methods and also give you an overview of which payment methods are particularly popular.

For example, for a long time, purchase on invoice was the number one method in online commerce. It's practical for consumers, too: first the goods, then the money. Constantly changing security regulations are also changing the way payment methods are used. In principle, the trend seems to be moving towards installment purchases, because in addition to PayPal Plus (click here for our article), the payment provider easyCredit now also offers installment purchases.

Although purchase on invoice is still popular, it has been replaced by PayPal and the like according to a Statista survey from 2021. What PayPal and the like actually mean and what other payment methods are popular, you can find out now. Let's start with the winner.

PayPal

PayPal is the clear winner when it comes to payment providers. Although there are also Klarna and Co. but nothing is as widespread and popular as PayPal. In addition, PayPal customers are very loyal to the platform; they always pay with the familiar software whenever possible.

PayPal protects the rights of the end consumer very much and ensures to be able to store carefree. However, PayPal also costs money, namely for us, as a store operator. Here, the costs are a percentage of the sales made and start at 1.9%. Subsequently, the costs decrease according to the amount of sales.

Speaking from the merchant's point of view, the following point should not be ignored: PayPal sometimes blocks accounts and freezes the money on them. This happens when there is a suspicion of terrorism or money laundering. The reasons for this suspicion are often not obvious. The freezing of the account can take up to several months.

The official PayPal for enterprise page. (German)

Similar providers to PayPal 

If you see the disadvantages of PayPal, you may want to resort to an alternative. Such an alternative can be for example Klarna, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Pay Direkt or Giropay. 

All these payment providers are also reputable and offer similar services. 

While PayPal only introduced installment payments in 2022, Klarna has had this option up its sleeve for a long time. In addition, Klarna has already been offering for years that you can agree on a payment term in 30 days.

Now we come to what used to be the most popular payment method on the net.

Purchase on invoice

The fact that this payment method is gradually declining is certainly due to the fact that the older generation is using the Internet less and less and the younger generation, which has grown up with the Internet, rules online commerce. After all, a common reason for purchase on invoice was that customers did not want to enter their personal data on the net. 

Nowadays, the purchase on invoice still takes a big role, just no longer the biggest. The reason for this is certainly still the input of personal data, but certainly also the advantage of paying later. 

Advantage for your online store can theoretically be the fee, because this is agreed individually with the bank. A big disadvantage is of course the 14-day cancellation period. Due to this disadvantage, Klarna can be an even greater advantage, because your customers are granted a purchase on invoice and you yourself have no obligations with this.  

Direct debit / Bank collection

It's simple. Exceptionally simple. - & that's why it's the third most popular payment method on the Internet. You enter your bank details and don't have to worry about anything. The amount is simply debited from your account. The only thing you have to worry about as a consumer is that your account is funded. 

However, this method offers a big disadvantage for the online merchant. The disadvantage is about the same as that of purchase on invoice. This payment method is risky, because the customer can reclaim the money at any time within a period of eight weeks and does not even have to give a reason.

The next payment method in the ranking is the credit card.

Credit card

It can be so beautifully simple 🥰 Paying by credit card is probably one of the easiest payment options. Simply enter the card number, verification number and expiration date and bang, it is paid. In most cases, the fee is also deducted from the account only in the next month. 

There are some disadvantages for the consumer, which is why this payment method is only found so far down in the ranking. For one thing, you quickly lose track of payments that have already been made. Secondly, a credit card can usually be charged very heavily. This ensures that a lot of money can be lost in the event of a cyber attack. And this data is really relatively easy to tap.

For merchants, this results in the disadvantage of high transaction fees. Especially the fees to foreign countries are high. 

Voucher, Prepayment, Surname

These three payment methods are the final ones. The reason for this is that they are hardly used.

Vouchers pose no risk to either the consumer or the online retailer. They are very convenient and easy to use. Why they are little used is clear, because they are hardly ever given away and hardly anyone buys a voucher for themselves. 

Prepayment does not create any risk for the online merchant. However, the customer can be very uncertain here, especially if he has not yet had any experience with the seller. However, prepayment is common, especially for personalized products. 

Surname Cash on delivery with this payment method, payment is made directly to the deliverer. Upon arrival of the goods and delivery, the order is paid. This procedure is very impractical and is therefore rarely or never used.

Payment methods in Shopware 6

Through various plugins, Shopware 6 gives you the possibility to add any payment method.

In the Shopware Store there are direct extensions for PayPal, Amazon Pay, EasyCredit or Klarna. But there are also extensions available, which offer you a collection of different payment methods. One of them is Mollie.

Mollie offers you all the payment methods you want. Among them are AMEX, Klarna, PayPal, MasterCard, Visa and Sepa. The big advantage: No monthly fees, not even for the plugin! You only pay a certain amount per transaction. 

The Mollie plugin in the Shopware store

Another such plugin is Stripe. Stripe offers you the possibility to implement Apple Pay, Giro Pay, Bancontact, the credit cards of all providers, iDEAL, Sepa and Sofortüberweisung directly in your store. Here, too, you have no monthly fees, but only pay for what you need. 

As you can see, there is no option to choose prepayment or postpayment for the respective plugins, I wonder what reason that has? 🤔

Ahja and the payment by voucher is also not offered. However, this is because this possibility is given directly in the store and no payment tool must be installed for this. 

You can easily implement these payment methods by downloading the respective plugin. Then set them up in the backend and bang, you have all the payment methods that your customers want available in your store. There are always installation instructions for this in the store under the respective plugin.

What is the best payment method?

As you can see, all methods offer their individual advantages and disadvantages. It also depends on which target group you are addressing. Basically, there are also some plugins that offer you an all-round package of possibilities and thus cover everything that the customer's heart desires.

We hope this article could give you some clarity in the jungle of payment methods. If you have any questions about the implementation of payment methods or other Shopware technical issues, please feel free to contact us. 🤓