ebook

The playbook for growth

mindset merchants



Learn how companies are staying on the

cutting edge of payments in an increasingly
uncertain world.
 intro
Payments is fast becoming a competitive 

advantage for commerce 03
chapter 01
The current state of the economy: 

a mixed bag for growth 05
chapter 02
The winning formula: no code 13
chapter 03
Payments checklist for any merchant

focussed on growth 22
intro

Payments is fast becoming 


a competitive advantage 

for commerce 



Marketers talk about the 'moment of truth',

that split second when a consumer decides

to buy one product over another and selects

a merchant to fullfil the order.

Brands and retailers spend millions on winning that decisive

moment but there is arguably another moment of truth that

follows immediately – taking payment. If this decisive step

disappoints, a shopper will take their business elsewhere. 

It may be the final part of the sales journey, but research from

PYMNTS.com has shown, it should not be an afterthought. For

two years running, payment is now identified in a global

consumer survey as the most crucial part of any ecommerce

experience. In fact, a choice of payment options is twice as

crucial as the next most important digital feature of including

rewards information. As such, it also outranks free shipping

options, fraud protection, returns and an easy-to-navigate site.

Given the backdrop of global economies struggling to recover

after the pandemic and consumer confidence only just starting to

recover from record lows last year, merchants need to reevaluate

their payments strategies. In today’s competitive markets, they

simply cannot afford to miss out on sales that then get passed

on to rivals.
 Payments is the most crucial part
of any ecommerce experience.
2023 Global Digital Shopping Index
PYMNT.com

Nobody would pretend it is easy. Payments is a complex speciality

which requires the best options are tailored to different customers
in every market, and then processed by the local PSP of choice.  

Fine-tuning winning strategies would normally take months of

coding and this can hold back ecommerce growth, taking
resources away from where they may add more value to the
business. However, with the arrival of no code/low code solutions,
where executives can implement smart decisions without a team
of coders, this all changed. Changes can be made in Payment
Service Provider at the click of a button to ensure the best
combination of high authorisation rates and low processing fees.
New payment methods can be added in a second, as can fail-
safe back-up PSP options to make sure your store can always
take customers’ money. 

And that is the point. There is serious money to be made in

payments, or at least serious money that can be lost if merchants
get it wrong. It is a complex field but the good news is, merchants
are now empowered to implement strategies and make
judgement calls at the click of a mouse. The development teams
that would have typically spent weeks on this can now be
released to carry out other parts of your ecommerce road map. 


 chapter 01

The current state of the

economy: a mixed bag
for growth 



The one thing that no

business can control is
the economy.
 3.2
global average GDP growth
according to OECD
%

Global markets spent 2022 teetering on the brink of recession,

making it more important than ever that ecommerce businesses,
who have had to slim down work forces and become more agile,
do all they can to maximise sales and not let poor payments
execution send customers elsewhere. 

There is growth out there, but it’s not as positive as before the
pandemic. The OECD has recorded global average GDP growth
slowed in 2022 to 3.2%, a percentage point below its previous
estimate. The average global growth rate is expected to be held
back again in 2023 and 2024 to 2.6% and 2.9% respectively.
These figures mirror growth rates for the G20, but for the G7, the
news is not so good. Average growth of just 1% and 1.1% is
predicted for the current year and next. China, India, Indonesia,
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are the only countries predicted to
outpace average global growth rates.

It is not hard to see the signs of markets in distress. Inflation rates

in the EU and UK hit double figures in 2022, settling at around the
10% mark during the first quarter of 2023. The United States saw
a similar spike, albeit not to double figures, before settling at 6%
in February 2023.

After years of record low interest rates, one need only look at
America to see the difference in the post pandemic era. Rates
have rocketed from near zero to 4.75% between March 2020 and
March 2023. 

These tough economic times are reflected in consumer

spending. The GfK Consumer Confidence Index, which dates
back to the ‘80s, hit an all-time low in the Autumn of 2022 and,
even when it recovered a little at the start of 2023, its researchers
warned the ‘bubble of hope’ could just as easily burst as carry on
growing. The European Commission reports a very similar
position of confidence hitting a severe low in the latter half of
2022 and is only starting to show the first signs of recovery in
early 2023. The US Index of Consumer Sentiment also hit a low
point in the summer of 2022, before rising at the end of 2022. It is
still only at half the levels recorded pre-pandemic.

Online retailers also need to factor in that a soar in ecommerce

sales during lockdown has since been corrected. The UK leads
Europe for online sales which hit a third of all retail spending
during the pandemic but have settled back to just over a quarter
at the start of 2023. The US saw the same with double digit
percentage growth in online sales values dropping off when retail
fully opened again, but 2022 still saw a growth of more than 7%. 

So, it’s a mixed bag. Economies are still struggling to deliver

growth and consumers are not confident enough to go on a
collective spending spree. However, there are the early signs of
recovery and growth which online retailers can tap into, so long
as they are set up to offer a seamless payment experience and
maximise the sales income available to them.
The ever-evolving consumer
expectations
Consumer confidence is just starting to improve as economies
emerge from the pandemic and, as it does, online retailers will
find that customer behaviour and expectations are evolving.
What’s more, they’re going to continue changing.

There is, and always will be, the ‘next big thing’ in payments. 

Ten years ago tapping in credit card details was all that was
needed, then that seemed a little inconvenient as digital wallets
were launched by PayPal, and later from the tech giants, Apple
and Google. Today, offering these without Buy Now Pay Later on
large ticket items, itself a novel idea just five years ago, would
almost certainly lead to lost sales. 

As payments options and technology keep evolving to reflect

customers’ demands for frictionless experiences, merchants
need to be agile. To keep up with the payment options
consumers expect to be offered normally requires a huge amount
of resources to be put into investigating and implementing new
options. This takes time and disrupts the ecommerce team,
delaying other upgrades and engineering work that have been
scheduled on a pre-agreed roadmap to deliver improved sales.

These evolving needs and expectations are driven by

technological advances in digital wallets as well as digital native
GenZ and millennial shoppers. With these younger customers,
merchants will discover there is a major switch away from credit
to debit cards. Research has shown that, alongside millennials,
adults aged 18 to 35 hold 14% fewer credit cards than those in
old age groups. Instead, they prefer to use debit cards, typically
stored in a digital wallet.

14 %
fewer credit cards used by
millennials

This is because they are concerned about falling into debt and,
and a result, have less of a credit history to raise loans against. As
such, they are the big users of the instant Buy Now Pay Later
offerings that are now essential for e-merchants to offer for high
value items.
 OR

1234 1234 1234 1234

A complex marketplace

Evolving customer behaviour means merchants need to ensure

payment systems are set up to offer the options consumers

expect and which also deliver as high an authorisation rate as

possible.

The trouble is, payments are complex. When ecommerce sites

first launched, shoppers only had the option of paying by card or

bank transfer via a handful of very well known, prominent

payment service providers.

Today consumers have a vast array of options from mobile

wallets, such as ApplePay, GooglePay and PayPal, as well as Buy

Now Pay Later players, such as Klarna and Zip. When you start to

include loyalty schemes which reward purchases with points that

can be redeemed against the cost of goods in a customer’s

basket, the full complexity starts to take shape.

It would be easy to assume digital wallets are the preserve of
mature markets where online shoppers value their convenience
and security over typing out card numbers. However, they are
also dominant in emerging markets with low banking penetration
because they open up ecommerce without the need for cards. 

As such, McKinsey reports they are the leading form of digital
payment in the Philippines and Vietnam, where they account for
31% and 25% of all online sales. In the Philippines alone, the
leading two digital wallets, GCash and Maya, are used by 83%
and 65% of all adults. 

Merchants cannot assume what works in one market, will work in

others. Each has its own banking system and online payment
traditions, meaning strategies have to be adapted to local
conditions and traditions.

This need to mix and match is probably why there are now more
than 900 payment service providers globally, with more than 300
servicing Europe and the United States, according to the
European Payments Council.

Making the right choices can lead to an uptick in authorisation

rates which, in turn, can have a massive impact on the bottom
line. But deciding what those right options for each market are
can take a lot of experience and, more importantly, a lot of
engineer time writing code to adjust check out experience for
different types of customers in each market. 

Understanding the multiple payment options and how each can

be best applied in each market for different types of customers
has previously been the preserve of large enterprises who have
the developer and engineer resources to get under the hood of
their ecommerce platforms.

This is where no a code/low code service can truly come into its
own by allowing those without deep resources to implement
strategies in seconds while empowering those with a team of
engineers to devote their time to delivering other aspects of their
growth roadmap.

11
 chapter 02

The winning formula: 


no code 



“ Out of complexity,
find simplicity.”


Albert Einstein

Complexity normally favours large companies to unravel how

changing consumer expectations dictates what payment strategy
to choose in different markets. Large companies have dedicated
teams of engineers, data analysts and product managers who
analyse and optimise performance, flag any suspicious activity
and implement new payment strategies.

Technology has proven a game-changer here, and with no code

platforms, merchants of all sizes can open new opportunities and
optimise their payment strategy for all customers and purchase
types across all markets. Rather than requiring a room of
engineers and a queue of requests, today’s online retailer can set
up a winning payments strategy at the click of a button.



Speed
Do the job in minutes, rather than months
Ecommerce operations are run by dynamic teams who want to
tap into new growth in new markets and to ensure they are
optimising sales in existing markets. The problem is, their existing
payment service provider may not be the best option in a new
country. Adding a new payment option for a new market can take
engineers months to write the code and integrate the new
partner. When engineers are dedicated to what is ultimately a
mundane coding task, it takes them away from delivering other
vital projects. 

Zenyum quickly realised the complexity of the payments

ecosystem when they were launching its health products to new
markets. With the many players in payments right now, one
country could have 3-4 different providers. Multiply this by 9
different markets, and you’ve got a huge task on your hands from
a scaling perspective.
 This is why the future of ecommerce lies in no code. Rather than
issuing a team of engineers a work request which could take weeks to
complete when it reaches the top of their ‘to do’ list, there are
solutions that can get the job done in seconds. 

In fact, adding a new partner is as simple as ticking a box. A merchant

will need to have an agreement in place with their PSP of choice, who
gives them their processing credentials. Once this is typed in, the new
partner can be added in seconds.



Zenyum market coverage

Nov 2021
Nov 2022

Payment integrations
Atome Stripe

Apple Pay ShopBack

C Checkout.com

Japan

Hong Kong
Taiwan
Macau

Vietnam
Thailand

Malaysia
Singapore

Indonesia

14
Localisation

In an ideal world, a small handful of PSPs would work perfectly for

all of a merchant’s global transactions. However, online retailers

know that is not the case. Each country’s own banking system

means that different operators offer the opportunity for better

authorisation rates in each market. 

A rule of thumb is that a customer from a particular country

paying in their local currency - and local language - will achieve a

higher authorization rate and a favourable transaction fee if a

local PSP is used. If a merchant has a legal entity in a country and

obtains a merchant account from a local acquirer, they are

primed for payment success in that region.

 Winning formula

Local payment processor Local Curency

Local Language Local payment method

If your current PSP doesn’t offer merchant accounts in particular

countries to unlock the power of your local entities, authorization
rates will suffer and processing costs in those countries will 

likely skyrocket.

Those who do understand the need for a local acquirer might not
realise quite how big a difference it can make or may feel put off
making a change for each individual market, particularly if it is
going to take so much coder or developer time. 

It’s also imperative to offer the preferred local payment methods

if you want to succeed in a new locale. For example, the live
streaming events platform, Veeps, experiences high traffic all
around the world. So they needed to offer different payment
methods at their users' fingertips. Today they are able to toggle
on and off payment methods based by region. For the
Netherlands, they have enabled iDeal which accounts for roughly
55% of all online transactions in the market. 

This is, again, where using Primer comes into its own. For each
market, setting up a local payment services provider and local
payment methods is simple. It’s just a click.

 Atome

show on checkout:

Afterpay

if country If amount

SG $ 100 show on checkout:

if country If amount

US $ 150

Optimisation and personalisation

If there is one behind-the-scenes area in payments where

merchants can make a huge difference on sales, it’s optimisation.

Once they have set up the best PSPs for each market, they might

think their work is done but a little fine tuning can make a huge

amount of difference. 

Talking about payment workflows may not get the board excited,

but the extra revenue pouring in, most certainly will.

A first step should always be picking a second, and even third,

PSP to fall back on if the preferred operator is down or

experiencing network delays. Setting up a back-up will ensure in

the microsecond it takes to establish there is a problem with the

first choice, the payment is immediately routed to the second

option, with the customer not even noticing the switch.

Where savvy merchants can really make a difference is to look at

the arrangements they have in place with different operators and

if two are equally suited to their local market, picking the one that

charges the lower fee as the first choice. This could vary

depending on individual contracts and how they apply to basket

value, but a savvy merchant will be able to work out which PSP to

prioritise in which market for different types of orders.

Basket size can also be used in a workflow to determine when to
offer Buy Now Pay Later. By simply inputting a figure, say a $100
minimum spend, merchants can avoid the expensive mistake of
offering finance on low value items. This limit may need to be
amended in different markets, not just to incorporate their
currency but to also reflect average incomes. A high value ticket
item in one market may be significantly lower than the $100 rule
applied to the US, for example.

Where merchants can additionally start to make a difference is to

use the data they know about a customer to make payments as
seamless as possible. They can, for example, set up a returning
customer rule that will offer the top option as their preferred
payment method. A customer who nearly always shops via Apple
Pay will be offered that as the first option, a PayPal devotee will be
offered that payment route as their first choice.

Customer experiences depend on personalisation. A customer

who frequently returns to a site and uses the same payment
method will appreciate not going through the friction of entering
all their details at every visit. By working with a payment
technology business that specialises in allowing people to 

store their preferred payment method and to be recognised 

and processed seamlessly is a real boon. The industry calls

this token vaulting but customers will know it better as 

frictionless convenience.

18
Loyalty
Being a member of a loyalty scheme can sometimes be more

puzzling than fulfilling. It is seldom clear how many points a

transaction will earn or what the true value of collected points is.

Checking up on a balance normally means logging in to a

person’s account on a part of a site far removed from its

checkout. 

This is why it’s essential to work with a platform that can integrate

a loyalty scheme with the payments service so brands can finally

be straight with customers. A total for a basket can mention how

many points they are earning while also presenting the option of

taking money off the bill by using pre-saved balances. 

This is a complicated task for merchants and can involve a 


deep level of integration. For Primer, it’s just a case of selecting

the loyalty provider your store uses and typing in the merchant’s

ID number.

Fraud
It is an inconvenient truth but as chip and pin and other security

methods have made in-store payments more secure, fraudsters

have moved online to target card not present transactions.

The latest figures from Juniper Research suggest global online

payment fraud cost merchants $41bn in 2022, rising to a

predicted $48bn in 2023.

$
41bn
predicted global online cost in 2023
 Nearly a half of this crime hits online retailers in North America,
42%, followed by Western Europe, 26%, and Asia, 22%.

These figures are growing despite the introduction of extra 3D

Secure checks which require a purchaser to prove their identity,
typically through entering a code sent to their mobile phone. 

The rise in fraud, despite this additional security measure, is why

merchants will usually want to adapt payment workflows to bring
in additional fraud checking services for their most risky
transactions. Setting up rules and installing anti-fraud providers
can take a team weeks of integration work. With Primer, adding a
fraud prevention check takes just a click of a button.

It need not be added for every purchase because merchants will

be keen to avoid paying fees for less risky payments. Hence, a
loyal returning customer might not be worth adding a check for
but, conversely, a new customer who has put a large value item in
their basket is almost certainly going to be worth running through
a verification service. These workflow rules can be set up in a
couple of seconds and can be adapted at a later stage to fit new
criteria. They allow merchants to pick and choose how and where
they implement their fraud strategies.



Payments
Payments
Riskified
Authorize payment
Payment created
Fraud check Processor Adyen
UK £
GBP
Fallback Stripe
 chapter 03

Payments checklist for any

merchant focused on growth



Tweaks and optimisations

have a major impact to
conversions, authorisation
rates and revenue.
The one takeaway a merchant needs to know about payments is
they are a game changer. What may seem like a small step or a
tweak to settings at the edge of their payments system can push
up authorisation rates and have a major impact on sales revenue.
But making those changes, keeping up to date with consumer
expectations and delivering a frictionless, secure payments
service can take a huge amount of developer time away 

from delivering on other vital aspects of a merchant’s tech
updates roadmap.

This is why Primer offers a no code platform so those with little or

no programming experience can make the changes they need to
see in seconds by just clicking a box. 

If you are wondering whether this is a solution worth checking

out, try answering these questions.

1. What’s your redundancy plan?

If you are using a single PSP strategy for your business, you are
out of luck if it goes down. That is why redundancy is critical for
capturing potentially lost revenue. For example if your first
provider is down, then understanding how to route payments to 

a second provider becomes paramount. This failover process
should be automatic, requiring no manual intervention from your
team. Every minute means lost revenue - and perhaps lost
customers, forever - in the world of online payments

2. How long does it take your team to integrate 


a new PSP?
Integrating and maintaining every integration in each country
takes up a huge amount of time and engineering resources. 

Also managing the complexity of each individual integration
means that engineers have to get up to speed - and fast - with
the various nuances with the data returned from each bank,
processor and third party providers.
3. Are you reaching customers with the best
payment method for their region?

Consumer habits change and merchants need to keep up 


with the latest spending trends. Relying on an off-the-shelf
provider could mean an ecommerce store is missing out on
revenue by not offering the best choice of alternative payment
methods - whether that’s digital or mobile wallets, Buy Now Pay
Later (BNPL), card payments and pay by bank options.

4. Can you craft personalised 


checkout experiences?

Ecommerce is all about frictionless customer experience. 


There is a balance between only accepting cards and presenting
every payment method available to you.  

To increase conversion and reduce cognitive overload, you can

set the conditions for when to present particular payment
methods. For example, only show iDeal for customers in the
Netherlands, or only offer your BNPL solution over a certain
basket value level (say, $100).

Credit or debit card

Credit or debit card

France
Netherlands
 5. Can you optimise workflows to boost
authorisation rates and cut fraud?

This is where a payment strategy can really make a difference to

revenue. Many merchants will shy away from setting up rules
because it is too complicated and code-heavy, especially if
operating globally. 

Bank identification number (BIN)-based routing to the PSP with

the highest probability of success can be configured using
conditions embedded in Primer’s drag-and-drop workflows.

Need to route transactions by country to a particular PSP that

offers you the best rates in a particular country? Anyone on your
team can set up this logic while sipping their morning coffee.

They can also set up rules such as only offering BNPL over a
certain basket value level and to only incur the cost of using a
fraud service on the riskier sales, such as a new customer buying
a large value item with their first purchase.

Condition

BIN Payments

Payments BIN = 123345 Authorize payment

Payment created Processor= Stripe

All other conditions

Country = Germany BIN = 123456

Country = Australia
Auth rate by processor
100%
Auth rate by processor
75% 100%

50% 75%

25% 50%

0% 25%
Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov

adyen
6. Can you check authentication rates in 

stripe worldpay paypal 0%
Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov

real-time? How easy is A/B testing PSPs and adyen stripe worldpay paypal

fraud providers?
This is where savvy merchants can really start to fine-tune their
implementations. By checking authentication rates for each PSP
in each market, an ecommerce operation can spot any low points
and prioritise another PSP in that region. They can then check
authentication rates to ensure they have gone up and, if not, 

try another service provider until the maximum rate is achieved.

A really smart feature is doing all of the above but with A/B
testing so PSPs in the same markets can be compared, allowing
a merchant to know - through data - which offers the best
authentication rates. 

7. What’s on your roadmap?

All ecommerce businesses have a product roadmap and a no
code option, which can help reduce the workload placed on
developers whose skill set would be best used on other complex
tasks. Would having the engineering team concentrate on where
they can add the most value free up budget and improve ROI?
Would this lower the total cost of ownership tied to payments?
 Primer transforms
payments from a blocker
to a growth accelerant.
Take back control of 

your roadmap with 

one integration.
Read how we're helping global businesses expand
to new markets, improving conversation rates and
increasing revenue here.



primer.io