Payment failures can cost retailers more than a single sale. They can also undermine customer confidence, particularly when shoppers encounter different experiences across payment methods, platforms or markets.
The Online Retail in South Africa 2026 study found that card declines are now a bigger cart-abandonment factor than shipping fees. For merchants, this puts the focus on creating consistent payment experiences across channels, platforms and markets.
Payment preferences vary across Africa
The study by World Wide Worx, Mastercard, Peach Payments and Ask Afrika found that the leading causes of failed payments were checkout or website errors (60.7%), insufficient funds (50.7%) and customer abandonment during authentication (50.7%).
When something goes wrong at checkout, customers are unlikely to distinguish between a payment gateway, payment rail, digital wallet or acquiring partner. They simply know that their payment failed.
Across Africa, delivering a seamless experience is complicated by the growing range of ways people transact. The continent’s digital payments economy is forecast to reach $1.5tn by 2030.
In South Africa, debit cards (99.0%) and credit cards (98.5%) are near-universal, while EFT and bank transfers follow at 89.1%. The Online Retail in South Africa 2026 study also found that buy now, pay later is offered by 54.7% of retailers.
Other payment options include rewards, vouchers and gift cards (38.3%), digital wallets (36.8%) and QR payments (27.9%). One-click checkout using saved card details is offered by 17.9% of retailers, payment links by 12.4% and PayShap by 6.5%.
Payment preferences differ across the continent. In Kenya, mobile money is dominant, led by M-Pesa. Safaricom reported that the service had reached 40 million monthly active customers in Kenya alone, equivalent to around 70% of the population.
Mauritius is also seeing growth in digital transactions. Bank of Mauritius figures show that mobile banking and mobile payment transactions rose from approximately 11.1 million in June 2025 to 12.6 million in June 2026. Over the same period, internet banking transactions increased from around 506,000 to 849,000, while mobile banking and mobile payment subscribers grew from approximately 1.91 million to 2.25 million.
For businesses operating across markets, consistency means making the payment experience feel local. Customers should be able to choose their preferred method while receiving the same simple, reliable experience from the merchant.
Make online and in-store payments consistent
One way to build consistency is to align payment options across online and physical retail channels. Whether customers shop on a website or walk into a store, the experience should feel familiar.
Monitoring customer feedback and support tickets can also help merchants identify recurring problems and address checkout pain points before they cost more sales.
This is particularly important as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widely used in commerce.
Prepare for AI-driven checkout
Checkout behaviour is entering another period of change as AI moves from search and product discovery towards transaction processing.
AI agents and agentic commerce could allow systems to make purchasing decisions and complete payments on a customer’s behalf, with the consumer playing a less direct role in the transaction. Pilot projects are already under way in some African markets.
This creates new challenges for consistency and trust. When a transaction initiated by an AI agent fails or is disputed, resolving the issue may be more complicated, potentially making the customer experience even more frustrating.
Payment systems have already evolved significantly, from cash being the default to contactless payments and digital wallets becoming part of everyday life. As new technologies and payment methods emerge, the systems behind transactions will continue to adapt.
For merchants, however, the priority remains the same: give customers a consistent, dependable experience, whichever payment method they choose. Getting that right can help protect both revenue and customer trust.
