Pakistan’s e-commerce industry is haemorrhaging an estimated $1.61 billion every year due to inefficiencies at the checkout stage, according to a white paper by Payoneer that lays bare the structural weaknesses still holding back the country’s rapidly growing digital retail sector. According to the report, merchants across Asia lose nearly $72 billion each year from checkout-related friction, with Pakistan accounting for a notable share of those losses, with cart abandonment remaining the largest source of revenue leakage, costing businesses around $970 million, or more than 60 percent of total losses. The figure is a striking indictment of Pakistan’s payment infrastructure at a time when consumer demand for online shopping has been growing consistently, suggesting that a significant portion of that demand is simply not converting into completed transactions.
Beyond cart abandonment, businesses face around $460 million in losses due to settlement delays, which slow cash flow and limit liquidity needed for order fulfilment and expansion. Another $180 million is reportedly lost through foreign exchange costs and payment-related leakage, reducing margins for merchants involved in cross-border trade. Together, these three categories of loss paint a picture of a sector where the demand side is functioning but the payment and settlement infrastructure lags behind, creating friction at precisely the moment when a customer is ready to complete a purchase. For exporters and online sellers serving international customers, the foreign exchange and settlement issues are particularly damaging, as they erode margins that are already thin in competitive global markets.
Industry experts say the issue is especially pressing for exporters and online sellers serving international customers, where localised payment options and transparent pricing in local currencies have become increasingly important for conversion. Analysts suggest reducing checkout friction, consolidating fragmented payment relationships, and improving settlement speed could help businesses recover significant lost revenue, while expanding access to localised payment methods and streamlining cross-border transaction flows are also seen as critical steps. Pakistan’s digital payments landscape has seen meaningful progress over the past few years, with the State Bank of Pakistan’s Raast instant payment system gaining traction and mobile wallet penetration expanding, but the Payoneer findings suggest that the last mile of the e-commerce transaction remains poorly served. Addressing that gap is not merely a technical problem but a commercial imperative, as the $1.61 billion figure represents revenue that Pakistan’s merchants are generating the demand for but failing to capture.
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