Airwallex has introduced Additional Payments, letting Shopify merchants offer local payment methods within checkout without redirects.
The application is aimed at merchants selling across multiple markets on Shopify, where checkout design can influence whether a transaction is completed. According to research by the Baymard Institute cited by Airwallex, the average online cart abandonment rate stands at 70%. Among shoppers who abandon a purchase, 10% cite an insufficient choice of payment methods, while 18% point to checkout being too long or complicated.
Local payment methods integrated into checkout
According to the official press release, with Additional Payments, shoppers can choose from more than 80 local payment methods, including WeChat Pay, KakaoPay, GrabPay, PayNow, Bancontact, TWINT, and BLIK, within the Shopify checkout interface itself, rather than being sent to an external provider page to make the selection. Airwallex noted that many existing payment applications on Shopify require this kind of off-site step before a shopper can choose a method, adding a stage to the purchase process.
The application displays payment methods according to the shopper's country and the store's settlement currency, and can be installed directly from the Shopify App Store without additional custom development. In addition, it can also run alongside Airwallex Card Payments, allowing card and local payment methods to be offered within a single checkout setup.
Cross-border settlement and fraud screening
Acting as the merchant's payments service provider, Airwallex settles cross-border sales in the currency in which they were made, across more than 20 currencies, rather than converting them into the merchant's home currency. Transactions are also screened through a real-time fraud detection system that includes 3-D Secure support.
Airwallex referenced separate Baymard research indicating that improvements to checkout design can raise conversion rates by up to 35% for large-scale ecommerce sites. The company positioned Additional Payments as a way for Shopify merchants operating across borders to offer region-specific payment options within a single checkout flow, rather than through external redirects.
