The “618” promotion in 2026 is in full swing, and more and more Chinese brands are taking advantage of this national e-commerce carnival to “go overseas”. However, cross-border payment failures are becoming an “invisible stuck point” that eats up merchants’ profits.
On June 1, Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce platform AliExpress launched the 2026 overseas “618” promotion; JD.com’s European online retail brand Joybuy will launch the Joybuy “Summer Black Friday” mid-year shopping festival in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Luxembourg from June 15 to June 30.
“For global retailers, large-scale promotion seasons are always a critical stress test for operational capabilities. The concentrated burst of traffic and orders will put significant pressure on the supply chain, fulfillment system and payment infrastructure.” Motie Bring, CEO of global payment service provider PPRO, said.
At these critical moments, growth means not only “selling more” but also “being able to successfully collect payments.”
Recently, the “Hidden Costs of Payment Difficulties in Cross-Border Retail” industry guide released by PPRO (referred to as the “Guide”) shows that payment failure alone causes global e-commerce sales losses of up to 11%.
At present, the global e-commerce market continues to expand. The total market transaction volume in 2025 will reach 8.3 trillion U.S. dollars, and the scale is expected to exceed 10 trillion U.S. dollars by 2030. According to customs data, my country’s cross-border e-commerce import and export in 2025 will be 2.75 trillion yuan, an increase of 69.7% over 2020.
In cross-border business scenarios, payment failure is a frequent problem encountered by merchants.
The “Guide” shows that 72% of merchants said that the payment failure rate of cross-border transactions is significantly higher than that of local transactions, which is also an important reason why customers give up orders midway.
From the consumer side, 94% of cross-border buyers hope to use local currency for settlement, and 99% of consumers will give priority to the payment tools they use daily.
This means that the checkout experience does not conform to usage habits, consumers often abandon transactions directly, and merchants lose orders and revenue.
These payment issues directly drive up the shopping cart abandonment rate.
According to the “Guide” data, the current global average online shopping cart abandonment rate is about 70%, and the mobile order abandonment rate is more than 75%.
Breaking down the reasons for order abandonment, 19% of consumers gave up the checkout because they did not trust the platform’s safe handling of credit card information, 18% of consumers terminated the transaction due to the cumbersome checkout process, and 10% of consumers chose to abandon the purchase due to the lack of common payment methods.
The high abandonment rate has brought huge economic losses. Global online retailers lose approximately US$18 billion every year due to shopping cart abandonment, and the total value of goods left in shopping carts is as high as US$4 trillion.
Especially during large-scale promotion nodes such as China’s “618” and overseas “Black Friday”, the transaction volume has exploded, which has put great pressure on payment conversion rate and settlement performance.
The “Guide” shows that during large-scale promotion nodes such as “Black Friday”, market transaction volume surges by 62% compared with normal days.
Consumers have a very low tolerance for page loading speed. Once the loading time exceeds 3 seconds, most users will choose to leave.
If the payment system has insufficient carrying capacity and suffers from lags and downtime, merchants’ early investment in traffic diversion and stocking will be greatly reduced.
More than that, issues such as fraud, chargebacks and settlement fragmentation derived from the payment process are eroding the profits of cross-border retailers; at the same time, different markets and different payment methods correspond to independent settlement documents and statements, which greatly increases corporate financial reconciliation and operating costs.
It can be seen that the localization capabilities of cross-border payments, as well as the success rate, stability, and security of the payment system, directly affect the ability of retailers to meet global consumer demand.
“The stability and localization capabilities of the payment system are becoming a decisive factor affecting conversion rate and revenue performance.” Motie Bring, CEO of PPRO, said that according to his calculations, companies that can provide local payment methods can increase their average revenue by about 12% and their conversion rate by 7.4%.
Currently, there are significant differences in payment habits among various regions around the world. For example, Europe accounts for the highest proportion of bank card transactions, and local payment tools such as iDEAL in the Netherlands and BLIK in Poland are highly popular. In Latin America, Brazilian Pix, offline cash collection and other methods are the main methods. There is a common problem of restricted use of overseas credit cards, which also requires merchants to build payment systems based on local conditions.
Motie
For example, Bring said that when a Swedish consumer sees an unfamiliar brand, but the brand supports a familiar and trusted local payment method such as Swish, he will be more confident in purchasing. “The logic behind this is that the payment method carries consumers’ comprehensive expectations for transaction safety, usage habits and after-sales guarantee, and is the first step to establish brand trust.”
Currently, as China’s “618” sales are approaching, more and more domestic platforms are expanding their promotional territories overseas, and Chinese brands are also participating in global competition through various overseas promotions.
The concentrated outbreak of traffic and orders continues to test the supply chain, fulfillment system and payment infrastructure.
At these critical moments, growth means not only “selling more” but also “being able to successfully collect payments.”
Motie Bring suggested that if companies want to seize the opportunity of increased demand during the major sales season, they must strengthen the construction of core payment infrastructure, including: providing users with locally preferred payment methods, ensuring a smooth and trustworthy checkout experience, and maintaining high system stability during peak transaction periods.
According to him, during the “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” periods in 2025, PPRO helped the platform successfully handle record transaction volumes and maintain stable operating performance.
In addition, its ability to improve conversion rates such as intelligent routing and automatic retry also further improves the authorization success rate and helps merchants improve sales performance.
“As global retail continues to evolve, Chinese brands are entering a new round of international growth. In this landscape, building a robust, flexible and localized payment infrastructure will become a key foundation for seizing the next wave of global opportunities.” He added.
