Vietnamese businesses face checkout inefficiencies in e-commerce

Vietnamese businesses face checkout inefficiencies in e-commerce

Vietnam’s e-commerce sector is growing at one of the fastest rates in Southeast Asia, but many businesses are losing customers at the final step of the transaction: the checkout.

Asia now contributes 62.6 per cent to global e-commerce growth, according to Nielsen IQ, cementing the region’s role as the world’s primary engine of digital trade. However, financial services platform Payoneer’s latest research highlights a striking paradox: as businesses scale online, more revenue is being lost at checkout before transactions are completed.

Across Asia-Pacific, businesses lose an estimated $72 billion annually due to checkout inefficiencies, from abandoned transactions to fragmented payment flows and hidden transaction costs. In Vietnam, this challenge is becoming increasingly relevant as companies shift toward direct-to-customer (DTC) models and expand into cross-border trade.

For many Vietnamese businesses, moving toward independent webstores is a strategic response to rising marketplace fees and the need for greater control over customer relationships.

However, owning the channel is only part of the equation. Converting demand into completed transactions is where many businesses face losses. This is often referred to as checkout leakage: the revenue that disappears between a customer deciding to buy and the payment being successfully completed or settled. It typically results from three types of friction.

First, cart abandonment occurs when customers exit at the payment stage due to failed authorisations, limited payment options, or unexpected costs at the final step. Each abandoned cart represents not just lost revenue but also wasted marketing spend.

Second, transaction fees, especially from currency conversion, can quietly reduce margins on cross-border transactions. At scale, these small deductions add up to a meaningful drag on profitability.

Third, settlement delays occur when funds take days or weeks to clear. As a result, businesses face cash-flow gaps that affect inventory purchases, advertising cycles, and supplier payments.

As customer acquisition costs continue to rise, businesses should broaden their focus from just attracting more traffic to capturing more value from existing demand.

According to Payoneer’s research, small or mid-sized DTC businesses generating $2–5 million annually could recover approximately $20,000 per year by optimising checkout performance alone. For many businesses, that amount can offset key operational expenses such as advertising, software subscriptions, or supplier payments.

Traditionally, checkout has been treated as a back-end technical function. Today, it is emerging as a direct driver of conversion rates, margins and cash-flow performance. Solutions like Payoneer Checkout, which is provided by Stripe Inc., are designed to address these inefficiencies by enabling a more integrated payment flow across markets and currencies.

By allowing businesses to collect, hold, and redeploy funds within a single ecosystem, this approach reduces reliance on external intermediaries and minimises repeated currency conversions.

The impact is measurable. Optimised payment infrastructure can achieve conversion rates of up to 95 per cent, increasing the proportion of completed transactions without additional marketing spend.

For Vietnamese exporters generating $10-20 million in annual cross-border revenue, this can translate into $120,000-$150,000 in recoverable value per year, alongside a 10-15 per cent improvement in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation, according to the report.

Payment infrastructure is no longer just an operational consideration. It is becoming a strategic and regulatory priority. As Vietnam strengthens its position in global digital trade, businesses that address checkout inefficiencies will recover lost revenue while build a stronger operational foundation for sustainable cross-border growth.

VIR