What Payment Methods Should I Add to Shopify?

Introduction

Choosing the right payment methods for your Shopify store directly impacts your conversion rate and your bottom line. While it is tempting to enable every available option, a cluttered checkout often leads to decision fatigue and abandoned carts. The goal is to provide the specific options your customers expect while protecting your margins from high transaction fees and chargeback risks.

We built HidePay to help merchants navigate this balance by giving them full control over how payment options appear at checkout. Whether you are selling locally or expanding to international markets, your payment strategy should be data-driven and tailored to your specific customer segments. You can install HidePay on the Shopify App Store and start testing rules in minutes.

This guide explores which payment methods you should prioritize based on your business model, geography, and customer behavior. We will also discuss how to optimize the presentation of these methods to ensure a smooth, high-converting checkout experience.

The Essential Foundation: Credit and Debit Cards

Credit and debit cards remain the primary payment method for global e-commerce. In most Western markets, a store cannot function effectively without accepting major card brands like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.

For most merchants, Shopify Payments is the most straightforward way to accept these cards. It integrates directly with your admin and eliminates the third-party transaction fees that Shopify otherwise charges. When you activate Shopify Payments, you automatically gain the ability to accept all major card brands.

However, card payments come with the inherent risk of chargebacks. If you sell high-ticket items or ship to regions with high fraud rates, you may need a strategy to manage card visibility. Some merchants choose to hide certain card-based options for specific high-risk countries or for customers with certain tags, shifting them toward more secure or manual payment methods.

Accelerated Checkouts and Mobile Wallets

Mobile commerce now accounts for the majority of online traffic. Typing in a 16-digit card number on a smartphone is a significant point of friction. Accelerated checkouts solve this by storing customer data and allowing one-tap purchases.

Shop Pay

Shop Pay is Shopify’s native accelerated checkout. It is known for its speed and high conversion rates. According to Shopify's own data, Shop Pay can increase conversion by up to 50% compared to guest checkouts. It also offers an installments feature, which we will discuss in the BNPL section.

Apple Pay and Google Pay

These digital wallets are essential for mobile users. They provide a high level of security through biometric authentication (like FaceID). If a significant portion of your traffic comes from mobile devices, these are non-negotiable.

The Problem with Express Buttons

While accelerated checkouts are powerful, they can sometimes bypass important checkout steps, such as terms and conditions checkboxes or specific shipping validations. We often see merchants who need to block these express buttons for specific products—like those requiring a signature or age verification—to ensure the customer completes the full checkout flow. The app includes a guide on how to hide the Express Checkout with HidePay so you can block or target express buttons based on cart contents, customer location, or store rules.

Leveraging Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)

Buy Now, Pay Later services like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay have changed how customers approach high-ticket purchases. By breaking a large total into smaller, interest-free installments, these methods can significantly increase your Average Order Value (AOV).

Why Add BNPL?

• Increased Accessibility: It makes expensive products more affordable for a wider range of customers.
• Reduced Cart Abandonment: Customers are less likely to leave when they see they can pay $25 today instead of $100.
• Upfront Payment: As a merchant, you receive the full payment upfront (minus fees), while the BNPL provider handles the credit risk.

The Downside: High Fees

The primary drawback of BNPL is the cost. While standard credit card processing usually stays between 2% and 3%, BNPL providers often charge 5% to 8%. If your margins are thin, offering BNPL on low-value orders might actually lose you money.

A smart strategy is to use the app to hide BNPL options for carts below a certain dollar amount; our help center explains how to create a payment customization using Cart Total rules so you only show financing where it makes sense.

Regional and Local Payment Methods

If you sell internationally, assuming everyone wants to use a credit card is a mistake. Local payment preferences vary wildly by country.

• The Netherlands: Over 60% of online transactions happen via iDEAL. If you don’t offer it, you will lose the Dutch market.
• Belgium: Bancontact is the dominant local method.
• Germany: Customers frequently prefer bank transfers (SOFORT) or PayPal.
• Southeast Asia: Digital wallets like GrabPay or GCash are often more popular than traditional bank cards.

Shopify Payments allows you to activate many of these local methods. They are triggered based on the customer’s location. However, sometimes Shopify’s default logic doesn't go far enough. You might want to rename these methods to be more recognizable to locals or sort them so the most popular local option appears at the very top of the list—see our guide on how to organize payment methods by country or by Shopify Market for step-by-step setup.

Manual Payment Methods: When to Use Them

Manual payment methods are those that are processed outside of your online checkout. These include Cash on Delivery (COD), Bank Deposits, and Money Orders.

Cash on Delivery (COD)

In markets like India, the Middle East, or parts of Eastern Europe, COD is still a vital trust-builder. Customers want to see the product before they hand over the money. However, COD has high return rates and logistical costs.

If you offer COD, you should use precise rules to manage it. For example, you can use the app to hide COD for customers who have a history of returning items (using customer tags) or for specific zip codes where your courier doesn't offer cash collection. See the tutorial on how to hide Cash on Delivery for foreign customers for a step-by-step example that guards your logistics and margins.

Bank Transfers and B2B

For B2B merchants selling wholesale, credit card fees on a $5,000 order are painful. In these cases, offering a "Bank Transfer" or "Invoice" option is preferred. You can set a rule to only show the "Bank Transfer" option when the cart total is above a certain threshold, encouraging high-volume buyers to use the lower-fee method.

Optimizing the Checkout Layout

Adding payment methods is only half the battle. How you present them determines how effectively they convert. A list of ten different payment icons can look messy and unprofessional.

Sorting for Conversion

You should always place your most preferred, highest-converting methods at the top. For most stores, this is Shop Pay or Credit Cards. By sorting these to the first position, you guide the customer toward the path of least resistance.

Renaming for Clarity

Sometimes the default name of a payment gateway is confusing. Instead of "Credit Card (via Stripe)," you might want it to simply say "Credit or Debit Card." Or, if you use a manual method for wholesale orders, you could rename "Bank Deposit" to "Wholesale Bank Transfer (Net 30)." Customizing these labels builds trust and reduces "checkout friction"—the hesitation a customer feels when they aren't sure which button to click. If a payment method isn't behaving or showing as expected, our doc on how to retrieve the correct payment method in HidePay explains how to find and fix method references.

Reducing Choice Overload

Psychology tells us that too many choices can lead to "action paralysis." If you offer four different BNPL options (Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, and Sezzle), you aren't helping the customer; you are making them choose between four nearly identical services. It is often better to pick one or two that best suit your demographic and hide the rest.

Protecting Your Margins with Rules

Every payment method has a different cost-to-profit ratio. A smart merchant uses rules to ensure they are always using the most cost-effective method for a given transaction.

Product-Based Rules

Some products have higher risk profiles or lower margins. If you sell digital gift cards, you might want to hide credit cards and only allow "Verified by Visa" or PayPal to reduce the risk of fraud. If you sell heavy furniture with low margins, you might hide high-fee BNPL options to protect your profit. See the guide on how to hide a collection of products in the cart with HidePay for examples.

Geography-Based Rules

If you notice that a specific province or country has a high rate of chargebacks, you don't have to stop selling there entirely. Instead, you can use our tool to hide the payment methods that are easily disputed (like standard credit cards) and only offer non-reversible methods like Cryptocurrency or Bank Transfers for those specific regions. For help choosing the right geographic target, read when to use Localized Country, Shipping Country and Shopify Market in HidePay.

If you need to enforce order-level rules (block or validate purchases based on fraud signals, quantities, or discount use), our validation app CartBlock on the Shopify App Store is a natural complement.

The Technical Edge: Shopify Functions

In the past, many of these checkout customizations required complex workarounds or "Shopify Scripts," which were only available to Shopify Plus merchants. This often meant editing theme code or using fragile "hacks" that could break during a platform update.

HidePay is built on native Shopify Functions. This is a modern, robust framework provided by Shopify that allows apps to interact directly with the checkout logic. Because it is native:

1. It is faster: There are no external scripts to load, so your checkout remains quick.
2. It is more secure: Your data stays within Shopify’s infrastructure.
3. It is future-proof: As Shopify updates its platform, Functions-based apps continue to work without maintenance.

This technology allows us to provide "Built for Shopify" certified tools that work for every merchant, not just those on the most expensive plans. For a product intro and the motivation behind HidePay's approach, see our post Introducing HidePay for Shopify, say goodbye to irrelevant payment options and high cost.

If you prefer to build or migrate Shopify Functions yourself (no code), consider SupaEasy on the Shopify App Store for codeless function generation and migration.

Creating a Payment Strategy: Next Steps

To determine which payment methods to add, follow this practical workflow:

1. Analyze your traffic: Look at your Shopify analytics to see where your customers are located. If 20% are in the Eurozone, research the top local methods there.
2. Calculate your margins: Identify which payment methods are too expensive for low-margin products and set rules to hide them when necessary.
3. Check your chargeback history: If specific methods are causing losses, restrict their visibility to trusted customer segments.
4. Simplify the view: Remove redundant options. If you have Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, you likely don't need five other express buttons.
5. Test and Refine: Use one rule at a time. For example, try sorting your preferred method to the top and monitor your conversion rate for a week.

If you’re optimizing both payments and shipping, the Nextools bundle explained in Introducing Nextools’ HideSuite combines HidePay and HideShip into a single, cost-effective suite.

To manage shipping options with the same rule-based approach, check out HideShip on the Shopify App Store.

Conclusion

The "best" payment methods for your Shopify store are the ones that align with your customers' habits and your business's financial health. By combining foundational options like credit cards with strategic additions like BNPL and local wallets, you create a checkout that feels personalized and professional.

• Prioritize cards and mobile wallets for speed and global reach.
• Use BNPL to boost Average Order Value on high-ticket items.
• Include local methods to capture international markets.
• Use rules to hide or sort methods based on risk and cost.

Optimizing your checkout doesn't have to be a manual, recurring chore. By using HidePay, you can automate these decisions and ensure that every customer sees the most relevant, cost-effective payment options. Ready to take control of your checkout? You can get HidePay for your store and start building your first rules today.

FAQ

Can I hide PayPal Express buttons on the first page of checkout?

Yes. Many merchants find that express buttons distract customers from entering discount codes or seeing shipping costs. You can set rules to block these specific buttons based on the customer’s location, the items in their cart, or other custom conditions; see the HidePay guide on hiding the Express Checkout for exact steps.

Is it possible to show different payment methods for B2B customers?

Absolutely. By using customer tags (like "Wholesale" or "B2B"), you can create a rule that hides retail-focused options like BNPL and instead shows manual methods like "Bank Transfer" or "Net 30 Invoice." For tagged or plan-based conditions, see how to hide the payment method based on the Selling or Subscription Plan.

Will hiding payment methods slow down my checkout?

No, not if the tool is built on Shopify Functions. Because we use Shopify's native infrastructure, the logic for hiding, sorting, or renaming payment methods happens instantly within the platform's own processing. There are no external scripts or theme code edits that could cause lag or layout shifts.

Why would I want to rename a payment method?

Renaming is often used for clarity or branding. For example, you might rename "Shopify Payments" to "Credit / Debit Card" to make it more obvious to the customer. You can also use renaming to localize your checkout, such as changing "Cash on Delivery" to the local language or a more common regional term. If a method isn’t appearing correctly after renaming, our help doc on retrieving the correct payment method in HidePay shows how to diagnose and fix method references.