Executive Summary

Digital commerce platforms help merchants of all sizes sell online, making them an increasingly big factor in ecommerce payments. This creates new opportunities for processors, gateways, and other payments stakeholders to reach merchants—but also complicates their relationship.

3 KEY QUESTIONS THIS REPORT WILL ANSWER

1. How big is the payments volume and revenue opportunity that digital commerce platforms offer payments players, and why is it growing?
2. What are the benefits and challenges to payments players of working with digital commerce platforms to reach merchants?
3. What can payments players do to appeal to digital commerce platforms and attract their clients’ payment transactions?

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? We examine why digital commerce platforms are on the rise and what that means for payments firms including processors, gateways, and value-added service providers. We then detail the ways payments firms can reach merchants via platforms, how to navigate platforms’ differing models, and how payments players can adjust their operations to secure partners and transactions in the space.

KEY STAT: We estimate digital commerce platforms will capture $414.42 billion in US retail ecommerce gross merchandise value in 2021, rising to $536.21 billion in 2023. The space’s size makes it lucrative for processors, gateways, and other payments firms that want to rack up ecommerce transactions.