Many e-commerce merchants are not set up to accept the payment methods local to Brazil, Russia, India and China (referred to as the BRIC nations), and BlueSnap aims to work with these merchants through a series of new templates.
BlueSnap's "buy now" templates are designed to help merchants more easily integrate local payment methods, instead of requiring them to build separate applications for each country on their own. About 80% of BlueSnap's customers are in Europe and North America, says Ralph Dangelmaier, CEO of BlueSnap.
"What's happened is we've trained all merchants to deal with swipe cards in their own country," he says. "But the growth in e-commerce in these countries is astonishing. Why would you not want to sell to these countries?"
Consumers in the BRIC countries want to pay with their local currency and local payment technologies, Dangelmaier says. Only 27% of U.S. ecommerce merchants are currently able to accept payments beyond their borders, according to the
China's most popular payment methods include the online payment provider Alipay and the China UnionPay card. China is a hot market for U.S. merchants to capture as its middle class expands, says Dangelmaier.
Russia is another country that has recently become a target for U.S. merchants, Dangelmaier says. Russia's payment ecosystem contains many wallet products, including Yandex, WebMoney and Qiwi.
In India, consumers use a system which is similar to ACH in the U.S. And Brazil has many local clients and tax rules in separate areas. Most Brazilians also use Boleto, an invoice payment method.
