PayPal heads up thriving alternative payments market

E-retail sales will surpass $3.3 trillion this year, up 10% on 2017’s total of $3 trillion, according to Juniper Research.

Alternative payment mechanisms will, meanwhile, comprise an ever increasing proportion of online spend. PayPal already accounts for 20% of mobile and online physical goods transactions made outside China, while the success of Alipay and Weixin Pay within China means that these two players combined now account for 45% of global payment volumes. There is also a significant opportunity for more nascent options, such as the various OEM-Pay solutions and carrier billing, recently adopted by Amazon in Japan for physical goods purchases.