New York, NY, USA
June 10,
2003
Online Retail Payments in Cross-Border
E-Commerce
Report Published by Celent
Cross-border C2B e-commerce
accounts for 6% of total online sales in the US, 10% in Western Europe,
and less than 1% in Japan. Celent urges US merchants and their payment
services providers to broaden the payment methods made available to
foreign shoppers in order to increase cross-border sales.
In a new report, "Online Retail Payments
in Cross-Border E-Commerce," Celent analyzes the state of
payment acceptance in a cross-border e-commerce context.
Payments are still a major liability in US merchants’
decisions to conduct cross-border sales. According to the report, US
payment services providers will have to expand beyond plastic to trigger
cross-border sales. In the process, they will be challenged to adapt their
card-centric business models to a non-card environment.
Cross-border sales account for an important share of
US online merchants’ sales, up to 20% of total sales in some cases. The
development of local web sites does not make supporting cross-border sales
less important. Meanwhile, cross-border e-commerce still faces significant
barriers, particularly with payments. In addition to supporting better
fraud management, US payment services providers should encourage merchants
to expand the payment options available to foreign shoppers. The first
step in that direction should be to accept foreign ACH credit and debit
payments, which are popular overseas.
"Put in perspective, the question of
ACH acceptance in cross-border e-commerce is very representative of the
more general issues facing the US payment industry"
comments Gwenn
Bézard, Celent Senior Analyst and author of the report.
Cross-border e-commerce payments issues relate to broader challenges in
the US payment industry such as the need for more flexible payment methods
online, the pressure on payment services providers to make distinct
payment systems converge, the need for integration of domestic ACH payment
systems worldwide, and the need for the US payment industry to take
foreign markets into account.
The 33-page report contains 18 figures and
3 tables.
A Table
of Contents is available online.
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