How to encourage Asian customers to spend more in your store?

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After the pandemic, global tourism has started to recover quickly, with Asian consumers once again emerging as the backbone of international spending. For merchants seeking to capitalise on this opportunity, understanding and accommodating Asian customers' payment preferences has become very important to winning over this high-value consumer segment.

This article explores how optimising the payment experience can unlock the spending potential of Asian customers. By leveraging Silkpay's cross-border payment solutions, businesses can make their stores the go-to choice for Asian consumers.

What are the preferred payment methods of Asian customers?

Asian travellers, particularly those from China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, generally place greater trust in and rely upon domestic mobile payment tools rather than traditional credit cards.

• Chinese tourists habitually use Alipay and WeChat Pay, indispensable payment methods in their daily lives;

• South Korean travellers favour NaverPay, KakaoPay or Toss;

• Southeast Asian visitors frequently use local e-wallets like DANA and TrueMoney.

Integrating these familiar payment methods not only makes checkout faster and easier but also signals respect and trust to consumers, which helps them feel comfortable and confident to spend more when shopping abroad.

Build trust through familiar payment methods

For Asian consumers, payment security is a crucial factor in purchase decisions.

In Asia, people use e-wallets much more often than credit cards. Many Asian travelers do not like to type in their card details when shopping abroad or use payment systems they don’t know, because they worry about security.

To offer preferred e-wallet options, European merchants often partner with providers like Silkpay, which offers a safe payment gateway and connects directly with major Asian e-wallets.

Through Silkpay's support for Alipay+, merchants can reach more than 1.6 billion Asian users, and provide a secure transaction environment for consumers.

This not only enhances consumer trust but also helps brands build long-term credibility in cross-border transactions.

Create the best online and offline payment experiences

Asian consumers are pioneers of omnichannel shopping, and they expect easy payment experiences across both digital and physical channels.

Silkpay provides different payment solutions to connect online and offline payments:

• Scan-to-Pay: Customers can instantly pay using familiar wallets by scanning static QR codes in-store or online;

• PaybyLink: Customers complete online payments by clicking links sent by merchants;

• POS terminal payments: Customers make instant offline payments in-store using any Asian e-wallet apps they want.

• Merchants manage all transaction records through a unified backend.

This easy experience not only enhances payment efficiency but also encourages repeat purchases and boosts overall merchant conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Understand the psychology of high-value Asian consumers

Asian travellers, particularly Chinese tourists, are hailed as ‘super consumers’ with average spending per overseas trip reaching US$7,000 to US$8,000.

To attract these high-value customers, businesses should:

• Offer premium payment experiences with transparent real-time exchange rates;

• Use marketing channels that reach them, like Alipay+ merchant recommendations, to increase visibility;

• Highlight ‘Supports Alipay, WeChat Pay, Kakao Pay…’ in store promotional materials to draw customers through payment convenience.

Understanding their spending psychology and offering sufficient convenience and respect during payment is key to securing their repeat business.

Integrate with Silkpay, a pioneer in Asian payment methods

Silkpay gives European merchants a simple way to accept Asian payments and connect with popular payment methods across different countries.

• Offline payments: Works with our PAX A920 Pro POS terminal, SoftPOS, Mobile POS, and QR code payments. 

• Online payments: Provides e-commerce APIs and plugins for integration into your website or platform;

• All-in-One management: Track transactions, handle refunds, and send payment links from one dashboard to save time and stay organized.

Through our online or offline solutions, merchants can accept Alipay+ (including 16+ Asian e-wallets), WeChat Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Amex, CB, UnionPay, UnionPay Yunshanfu, as well as Visa and Mastercard.

By removing payment obstacles, Silkpay helps merchants significantly boost conversion rates and average order values, and run cross-border business more efficiently.

Conclusion

To truly win over Asian consumers, merchants must first understand their ‘payment language’. Payment is not just the end of a sale; it marks the beginning of customer experience and trust.

With Silkpay, your store can:

• Integrate over 30 mainstream payment methods with a single click;

• Build trust through secure, familiar payment environments;

• Attract the world's most influential consumer groups.

About the author: Silkpay

Based in Paris, Silkpay provides omnichannel and secure payment solutions to help physical stores and e-commerce in Europe and the Americas accept more than 30 of the world's most popular payment methods: Visa, Mastercard, CB, UnionPay, Alipay+, WeChat Pay as well as Asia-Pacific’s major e-wallets.

Silkpay is a winner of the LVMH Innovation Award. The company was also selected as a finalist for the "Money 20/20" Best Startup and in the "MPE Berlin” Startup Awards. Silkpay also won the "Best Fintech" awards from Capgemini and BPCE.

Silkpay helps merchants deliver the smoothest payment experience to their customers. We are a talented and international team driven by a single goal: to improve the customer experience and make payments simple and secure.