Preferred online payment methods of UK consumers in 2019

In the United Kingdom (UK), PayPal was the most used online payment method in 2019. According to the results of a 2019 survey carried out by Attest, while 49 percent of shoppers were using their PayPal accounts to make payments, 37 percent used a credit or debit card. In comparison, digital wallets such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay and Apple Pay were used only by a small share of consumers.

Digital commerce users in the UK

According to Statista’s own estimates, there are over 66 million digital commerce users in the UK. Digital commerce is defined as “consumer transactions made via the Internet which are directly related to online shopping for products and services”, which can be made via online and mobile payment methods such as credit cards, PayPal, digital wallets like Google Pay and Apple Pay. Consumer opinions about digital payment methods are generally positive, one of the main reasons being the belief that it would enable payments to be “traceable”, hence reducing fraud.

Digital wallets and retailers

With increasing instances of and positive attitudes towards digital payments, there emerges a need for retailers to adopt as well, and make innovative payment methods available for their customers. But the pace of this transformation is rather slow, especially in the case of mobile/digital wallets. A case in point is the UK, where as of 2019, only a tiny proportion of multichannel retailers were able to accept digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay as an available payment method.