Expanding to a nearby EU market feels easy — until checkout, foreign exchange and PayPal payment defaults quietly kill conversion, and this localized playbook prevents that loss. What looks like one European market is really a patchwork of local payment habits, currency expectations, and checkout norms. These are the kinds of gaps that separate a smooth launch from a leaky one.
Payment behavior is not uniform across Europe, and the Polish market makes that clear. BLIK accounted for 70.8% of e-commerce payment transactions in Poland in Q4 2025, while debit and credit cards captured 21.3% [1]. This concentration means that a card-only checkout addresses only a minority of how Polish shoppers actually prefer to pay. For a brand entering Poland, the payment method mix is not a minor setting but a core part of the buying experience.
The scale behind this preference is considerable. In Q1 2025, Polish customers used BLIK for over 325 million online transactions totaling 49.5 billion PLN [3]. That volume reflects an ingrained habit rather than a niche option. When a payment method reaches this level of everyday use, its absence at checkout becomes a visible omission to local shoppers.
Cash on delivery also plays a role in Poland, where 60.7% of online stores offer cash on delivery as a payment option [4]. Offering this method aligns a store with what a large share of local competitors already provide. The takeaway is that even within a single country, several payment types coexist and each serves a different segment of buyers.
Country matrix showing preferred payment methods and cash-on-delivery availability by market.
Romania is a strong example of a cash-on-delivery-heavy market, where 62% of online orders were paid via cash-on-delivery in 2025 [2]. A separate reading of the same market puts cash on delivery at roughly 51% of Romanian online orders during peak season 2025 [5]. Both figures point to the same conclusion: a checkout that omits cash on delivery in Romania ignores how a large portion of customers expect to pay.
Cards still matter in Romania, where debit and credit cards represent about 45% of e-commerce payment value [5]. This shows that offering cards and cash on delivery together covers complementary parts of the market rather than competing options. The device context reinforces the point, as over 75% of Romanian e-commerce transactions are made on smartphones [2]. A mobile-first checkout that also supports local payment habits fits how Romanian shoppers actually browse and buy.
Cash on delivery availability extends across several markets in the region. In Greece, 85.6% of online stores offer cash on delivery, in Bulgaria 80.3%, and in Slovakia 80.1% [4]. These high shares suggest that in these countries cash on delivery is a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator. By contrast, in Scandinavia and Western/Northern Europe, cash-on-delivery availability is typically under 10% of online stores [4]. This split tells expanding brands to treat cash on delivery as market-dependent rather than a universal default.
The commercial weight behind these payment habits is real. Romanian e-commerce turnover was €11.7 billion in 2024, about 10% higher than in 2023 [5]. A market of that size means the cost of a mismatched checkout is felt across a large base of transactions. Growth of this kind also signals room for new entrants who localize correctly.
Online sales accounted for roughly 11% of Romania's total retail sales in 2024 [5]. This share indicates that online buying is an established channel rather than a fringe behavior in the market. For a brand weighing where to expand, the combination of market size and payment expectations helps decide which localization work to prioritize first.
Looking again at the €11.7 billion turnover figure, the scale reframes small checkout decisions as material ones [5]. When cash on delivery represents a majority behavior in the same market, the operational choice to support it becomes a question of covering demand rather than adding a convenience. The two data points together frame localization as a revenue-facing decision, not a back-office one.
Launch checklist layout highlighting localization milestones for a new market.
Start by expanding the payment methods you accept in each new market. Accepting more payment methods helps a business expand its global reach and improve checkout conversion [6]. Apply this at the point where you configure your market-specific checkout, and prioritize the methods local shoppers already recognize rather than defaulting to a single global option.
When you enable a market-specific method such as iDEAL for the Netherlands, follow the platform's setup requirements exactly. When creating a new Checkout Session, add "ideal" to the list of payment_method_types and make sure all line items use the "eur" currency [7]. Apply this in the checkout configuration for that market, and avoid leaving line items in a mismatched currency, which can block the method from appearing.
Match the payment options to what local customers expect to see. In the Netherlands that means iDEAL, and if customers don't see familiar options, some will simply abandon their carts, as noted by Stripe [8]. Apply this by auditing your checkout against the local default before launch, and do not assume a familiar-to-you method is familiar to the shopper.
Reduce currency ambiguity at the moment of purchase. By displaying prices and charging in the shopper's local currency, you can remove that ambiguity and make the experience feel transparent and familiar [8]. Apply local-currency display on product and checkout pages, and avoid presenting a single foreign price that forces the shopper to mentally convert.
Localize the language and formatting of the checkout itself. If a French shopper sees a checkout flow in English, there is an immediate disconnect, so local language support along with regional formatting for dates, phone numbers, and addresses reassures customers and minimizes last-minute drop-offs from confusion [8]. Apply localized copy and address-field formatting per market, and do not ship an English-only flow into a non-English market.
Use A/B testing to measure the effect of your delivery promise before committing to a fulfillment setup. The conversion rate improvement from faster delivery is measurable through A/B testing by displaying a 2-day delivery promise versus a 4-day delivery promise to equivalent traffic segments and measuring the conversion rate difference directly from the checkout data [9]. Run this test on equivalent traffic segments, and do not compare mismatched audiences that would distort the result.
Protect cash-on-delivery orders with verification before you spend on fulfillment. OTP confirmation via SMS or WhatsApp catches impulse orders and fake phone numbers, and merchants who add verification typically see RTO drop by 15-25%, according to EasySell [10]. Trigger the verification step before shipping, and avoid dispatching unverified cash-on-delivery orders that carry higher return-to-origin risk.
Add a commitment step for lower-intent cash-on-delivery buyers. Collecting even a small deposit of 10-20% of order value at checkout filters out low-intent buyers, since customers who've already paid something are far more likely to accept delivery [10]. Apply the partial prepayment at the checkout step for cash-on-delivery orders, and do not require full prepayment where it would remove the appeal of cash on delivery entirely.
Comparison layout of localized checkout and delivery-testing configurations.
The steps below compress the tactics already covered into a pre-launch sequence you can apply per market. Each item maps to a specific configuration or test described earlier in this playbook.
Expanding into a neighboring European market rewards brands that treat local payment habits, currency display, and checkout language as core parts of the buying experience rather than afterthoughts. The evidence shows how sharply preferences diverge, from a market where a domestic transfer tool dominates online payments to markets where paying on delivery remains a mainstream expectation and others where it barely exists. Layering in familiar payment options, local-currency pricing, verification for delivery-based orders, and simple tests of your delivery promise turns a risky launch into a measurable one. When each market gets a checkout that feels native rather than borrowed, which of these localization gaps is quietly costing you the most conversions right now?