Most Popular Payment Solutions Among Online Stores: study by MARC Russia 2017
April 18, 2017
MARC, a global research agency, studied the market of payment aggregators in Russia and saw how online stores preferences have changed over the year. The company analyzed 116 thousand websites, which sell various goods and services.
In a year, the number of websites that accept online payments has increased by 32% — from 88 thousand to 116 thousand. «Such growth is provided by the websites that had previously existed and only offered offline payment options, but have recently added online payments, — says Stanislav Kasenkov, Head of the MARC digital research department. «These days, online payments are in demand even in types of business that are traditionally considered offline: for instance, in medicine, car services, cleaning, repair, educational and utility services».
More than 66% of websites accept online payments through payment aggregators*. 24% connect particular payment methods — for example, e-wallets — directly through the provider. 13% set up Internet acquiring via banks, 7% via payment gateways**.
«There are very few websites that accept only card payments or other particular methods, since this is an outdated and inefficient approach», — explains Stanislav Kasenkov. «Most websites accept payments through aggregators or combine their services with an additional payment method connected directly».
How Russian websites accept online payments
| Index /Period | End of 2016 | End of 2015 |
| Number of websites using online payment solutions, in thousands | 116 | 88 |
| Percentage of websites using online acquiring from banks | 13 | 9 |
| Percentage of websites working through a payment aggregator | 66 | 64 |
| Percentage of websites using payment gateway | 7 | 8 |
| Percentage of websites with a direct connection to particular payment methods (e.g. e-wallet) | 24 | 27 |
Russian websites use the services of about 100 payment aggregators and gateways. The most popular payment aggregator of 2016 is Yandex.Checkout: it is used by almost 30% of websites. Second most popular payment aggregator is Robokassa: at the end of the last year, more than 10% of websites used it to receive payments. About 4.6% of websites work with Payeer, 4.2% with UnitPay, about 4% use Wallet One and Interkassa, 3% use PayAnyWay, 2% use RBC Money, PayMaster and Platron. About 11% of websites work with other aggregators, including PayU, Uniteller, PayOnline, Assist, IntellectMoney and ECommPay. Each of these aggregators accounts for 0-2% of websites. Usually websites use them as the main provider of payment solutions or in addition to their main one.
Top 10 payment aggregators in Russia: 2017
According to the number of websites connected to them
| Aggregator/period | End of 2016, percentage of websites | End of 2015, percentage of websites |
| Yandex.Checkout | 29,6 | 23,9 |
| Robokassa | 10,3 | 19,6 |
| Payeer | 4,6 | 4,5 |
| UnitPay | 4,2 | 4,2 |
| Wallet One | 3,6 | 2,4 |
| Interkassa | 3,6 | 5,2 |
| PayAnyWay | 2,9 | 2,0 |
| RBС Money | 2,2 | 2,6 |
| PayMaster | 1,9 | 1,3 |
| Platron | 1,8 | 1,5 |
| Number of websites using online payment solutions, thousands | 116 | 88 |
The study was conducted in January and February of 2017 by comparing indexes for the fourth quarters of 2015 and 2016 of Russian websites that accept online payments. Yandex machine learning methods were used for this selection.
* Payment aggregator is a service that allows websites to accept payments in various ways: from cards and e-wallets, via online banking, mobile commerce and so on. The aggregators provide services to different kinds and volumes of business. Some aggregators also work as payment gateways.
** Payment gateway is a service that allows websites to receive payments only from bank cards. Gateways are popular with medium-sized and large enterprises that only use acquiring directly from a bank and do not need any other payment methods.
About MARC:
Market Adjustment Research Center (MARC) is an international full-service research company. The Research Center focuses on Financial, FMCG, Automotive, Telecommunication, Social Media, and Electronics markets. MARC has delivered growth and business building results for many Russian and international clients, such as Sberbank, Megafon, Coca-Cola, Land Rover and others. MARC has offices in USA and Russia. MARC is a proud member of the Marketing Research Association (MRA) and the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association.