Easily Accept Payments in the EU with Klarna, PayPal Plus, iDeal, Giropay, Sofort, and SEPA

13 min read

European merchants, today is your lucky day: Ecwid E-commerce now supports six additional payment options — including some of the most popular payment platforms in Europe!

Now your customers can pay for their purchases via Klarna, PayPal Plus, iDeal, Giropay, Sofort, and SEPA in addition to the 50+ payment methods already supported by Ecwid. What does that mean for you?

More satisfied shoppers: since these payment methods are wildly common among European customers, they expect them at the checkout in your store.
Fewer abandoned carts: providing popular payment methods ensures more customers finish their purchases. Many European shoppers prefer to pay with debit cards, bank transfers, or in installments rather than with a credit card.
Lower payment fees for you: new payment options have lower fees compared to other methods.

Best of all, with Ecwid E-commerce, you can use all those new payment options without having to pay transaction fees! That’s right, unlike many other e-commerce platforms, Ecwid doesn’t charge any transaction fees, no matter how many sales you make. You only have to cover the payment provider fees.

If your store is located in Europe, or you have lots of customers from European countries, read on! We’ll give you the low-down on all our new online payment providers and show you why diversifying your payment options is vital when selling to European shoppers.

In this post:

New European Payment Providers Supported by Ecwid E-commerce
Why You Need to Offer More Payment Methods
How to Add New Online Payment Options

New European Payment Providers Supported by Ecwid

Excited to convert more European customers (as in, get them to buy stuff) by offering their favorite ways to pay? Here are six new payment providers they’ll be happy to see at your checkout.

Klarna

Klarna is #1 market leader in “buy now, pay later” services. It allows online shoppers to make a purchase without paying upfront, which makes it much easier to decide on a purchase. That, in turn, creates more opportunities for higher conversions and bigger sales for you as a seller.

With Klarna, you can let your customers pay for their orders via three payment options:

Klarna. Pay now: customers pay for their orders immediately using their online banking details
Klarna. Slice it: customers pay in four interest-free installments
Klarna. Pay later: customers can order first and pay 30 days after purchase by invoice without any fees.

Even if your customers choose to pay later or over time, you get paid upfront and in full by Klarna.

Customers can pay through installments with Klarna. Slice it

Klarna’s payment methods are available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia and the USA. One million transactions are made with Klarna every day. Adding such a widespread payment method ensures you’re meeting the needs of your customers. That, in turn, minimizes cart abandonment in your store.

Learn how to accept Klarna payments in your Ecwid store.

PayPal Plus

PayPal Plus is a popular payment solution created for the German market. It allows you to offer PayPal, credit cards, direct debit and Pay by Invoice as individual payment options at checkout.

Note: PayPal PLUS is available in the German and Latin American markets. With Ecwid, you can accept payments with PayPal Plus only in Germany.

With PayPal Plus, customers can pay for purchases in your store even if they don’t have a PayPal account.

Learn how to accept PayPal Plus payments in your Ecwid store.

Customers can choose Pay by Invoice as a payment method

iDEAL

If you sell in the Netherlands, you simply can’t do without iDEAL. This popular payment method enables consumers to pay online using their bank credentials. It redirects shoppers to their online banking environment to authenticate a payment, using two factor authentication.

iDEAL is the most popular online payment method in the Netherlands, with a share of online transactions close to 55%. Just think about it: every other transaction there is paid with IDEAL. Set it up in your store and expect more orders from your Netherlands shoppers.

Learn how to accept iDEAL payments in your Ecwid store.

Giropay

Giropay is a common online bank transfer payment method that is wildly popular with German customers. 85% of all German shoppers can enable Giropay. Even more impressive, this payment gateway accounts for 16% of all online transactions in Germany.

Giropay is accessible by more than 45 million users. With no extra registration, customers can make transfers with their online banking credentials. Right after the payment, you receive an irrevocable payment guarantee. That allows you to process the order immediately and ship it quickly. Plus, compared to other payment methods, giropay has lower fees.

Learn how to accept giropay payments in your Ecwid store.

You can connect your store to giropay using your Stripe account

Sofort

Sofort is a real-time bank transfer payment method that serves 13 markets across Europe: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. More than 30,000 merchants throughout the continent use SOFORT each month.

With Sofort, shoppers can transfer funds directly to merchants from their bank accounts. All they have to do is login with their banking information and enter a transaction authentication number (TAN) (or the equivalent version for their country and bank). Remember, the easier it is for a customer to pay in your store, the more they are likely to finish the checkout process.

SEPA Direct Debit

Selling across the borders in the EU? Then SEPA is for you! It is a payment method widely used across countries in the European Union.

Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) allows you to receive online payments from European customers in euros using a single bank account.

SEPA currently covers 36 countries and territories: the 27 EU Member States plus the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and Vatican City/Holy See. Your EU customers might expect to see SEPA at checkout, so make sure you can provide it for them.

In Germany, SEPA direct debits account for 22% of the payment market. SEPA is also very popular in Denmark, Norway, the UK, and Poland.

Learn how to accept SEPA payments in your Ecwid store.

Why You Need to Offer More Payment Methods

One of the main factors that influence a buyer’s decision to purchase are payment methods available in the online store:

A lack of payment method variety is one of the primary reasons that shoppers abandon their carts. A recent survey found that 20% of digital shoppers abandoned their carts because their “preferred payment option was not offered.”
Customers are more digitally integrated than ever before, and like to explore new payment methods. In 2019, one out of five Europeans preferred to use fintech payment methods like giropay, SEPA, or Sofort for their online purchases.
European shoppers have diverse choices regarding online payments. For example, customers in the UK and France prefer card payments and e-wallets. Payment by invoice ranks high in German-speaking countries, while Dutch shoppers predominantly use the online banking method iDEAL. So if you sell across borders, you can’t go wrong with having multiple payment options in your store.

Also: How to Pick a Payment System For Your E-commerce Store

How to Add New Online Payment Options

To accept payments online, open a merchant account with a payment provider that is supported by Ecwid. Then choose this payment processor when adding an online payment method in your store.

In Ecwid, giropay, Sofort, iDeal, SEPA, and Klarna are available via Stripe integration. Stripe is a common and easy-to-set-up payment provider, that allows you to accept payments in over 30 countries. With Stripe, you can accept credit and debit cards, mobile wallets, and enable lots of other payment options including Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Here’s how to set up Giropay, Sofort, iDeal, SEPA, and Klarna in your store:

Go to the Payment page in your Control Panel.
Scroll down and click “Choose Payment Method.” You’ll be able to choose “Giropay with Stripe”, “SOFORT Banking (via Stripe)”, “iDEAL (via Stripe)”, “SEPA Direct Debit (via Stripe)”, or “Klarna (via Stripe).”
Click “Connect.” You’ll be taken to the Stripe website where you’ll need to log into your existing Stripe account or create a new one.
Make sure the payment method you choose is activated in your Stripe account.
After connecting the chosen payment method via Stripe, you will be redirected from the Stripe website to your Ecwid store. In the “Payment method name at checkout”, enter the name under which customers see this payment method at checkout.
Turn on the “Enable this payment method at checkout” setting.

In the “Payment instructions for customers”, add a description of the payment method for your customers, it will appear at the checkout. (optional)

That’s it! Now you can accept payments with giropay, Sofort, iDeal, SEPA, or Klarna.

For PayPal Plus, things work a little differently. Here’s how to enable it in your Ecwid store:

Go to the Payment page in your Control Panel.
Scroll down and click “Choose Payment Method” → PayPal PLUS.
Apply for PayPal Plus by clicking on the link:

You will be redirected to PayPal website where you can log into your existing account or create a new one and apply for PayPal Plus.
Once your PayPal Plus account is approved, enter your PayPal email and click “Save.”
Make sure that PayPal Plus is activated in your PayPal account. Click “Continue to PayPal” to check the status of the PayPal Plus.
You can also accept payments with the Pay upon Invoice option. To activate it, simply click on “Apply for Pay upon Invoice.” You will be redirected to the PayPal website where you can apply for the invoice payment option.
In the “Payment instructions for customers field”, add information for your customers at checkout. (optional)

After that, the PayPal algorithm will automatically offer relevant payment options to your customers at checkout based on their location and browser cookies.

Each payment provider has their own terms of service and may charge extra fees for providing the service. When choosing a payment method, check the terms of service and make sure the provider supports your type of business and products, and/or the services you sell.

Connect New Payment Methods

The more convenient the checkout process is in your store, the more likely your customers are to finish their purchase, and return as repeat customers. A lot depends on payment options you offer, so make sure you choose the ones that best cater to your customer’s needs.

Are you thinking of adding new payment methods to your store? Which providers would you like to see on the list of gateways supported by Ecwid? Leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments!

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Ecwid Updates

Dec 17, 2020

About the author

Jesse is the Marketing Manager at Ecwid and has been in e-commerce and internet marketing since 2006. He has experience with PPC, SEO, conversion optimization and loves to work with entrepreneurs to make their dreams a reality.