In this TNGlobal Q&A, we speak with Theo Spyrides, Head of Product at payments infrastructure firm Primer, on how retailers can turn the checkout experience into a real source of competitive advantage during the peak shopping season. Against the backdrop of an increasingly fragmented payments landscape in Asia-Pacific, where digital wallets, local schemes, and situational payment preferences all coexist, Spyrides shares how merchants can better align their payment flows with rapidly evolving consumer expectations. He notes that shoppers today are not only looking for their preferred payment methods, but also for speed, reliability, and a checkout journey that feels native to their market and the brand they are engaging with.
Spyrides explains why checkout can no longer be treated as a purely technical endpoint. With cart abandonment in APAC still hovering at high levels, the payment experience has become a critical brand touchpoint that can either reinforce or undermine customer trust. He highlights how seemingly minor adjustments, such as the order in which payment options are displayed or how familiar card and wallet icons appear on screen, can translate into meaningful conversion uplifts at scale. For brands that invest heavily in storytelling, design, and customer engagement, an ill-fitting or generic checkout risks introducing friction at precisely the wrong moment.
The conversation also explores Primer’s “brand-first” approach to checkout and how modular, highly configurable payment components can help retailers strike a balance between speed of implementation and depth of customization. Spyrides outlines how merchants can design checkout journeys that mirror their brand positioning—whether premium, entertainment-focused, or utility-driven, without embarking on long, resource-intensive development cycles. He further discusses how better payments infrastructure, including intelligent routing, redundancy across PSPs, and real-time monitoring, becomes especially critical during major events such as 11.11 and Black Friday, when any latency, outage, or false decline can quickly translate into lost revenue.
Looking ahead, Spyrides shares his view on what will define the next wave of competitive advantage in retail and payments. He points to AI-augmented decision-making, true composability, and greater operational sophistication across the entire payments lifecycle, from checkout to settlement and reconciliation, as key differentiators. As merchants move from asking “Can we do this?” to “What if we could?”, he argues that those equipped with flexible infrastructure and intelligent tools will be best positioned to experiment, adapt, and capture value in an increasingly complex “what-if economy.”
What are the biggest shifts you’re seeing in how Asian shoppers prefer to pay today?
The current APAC payments landscape is incredibly dynamic. The diversity of payment preferences and methods is the most striking characteristic of the region. We are seeing a fundamental shift away from one-size-fits-all payment solutions toward hyper-local preferences that vary dramatically even within the same country. At the same time, the globally connected nature of e-commerce means that merchants are seeking to reach customers across more markets.
Digital wallets continue to dominate, with players like Alipay, WeChat Pay, and GrabPay becoming the default for millions of consumers. But the availability of these options is not only what drives conversion – it is also the presentation and prominence of these options that matter. Shoppers expect their preferred payment method to be prominently featured, not buried behind multiple clicks or generic card forms. This expectation of a dynamic shopping experience that reflects local preferences is a huge challenge for merchants.
What is particularly interesting in Asia is the emergence of situational payment preferences. A shopper might use one method for everyday purchases, another for luxury items, and yet another for cross-border transactions. The challenge for merchants is accommodating this fragmentation and complexity without creating friction at checkout. The other major shift is around expectations for speed and seamlessness. Asian consumers, particularly in markets like Singapore, China, and South Korea, have been conditioned by super-app experiences where payments are almost invisible. This ultimately sets the bar that retailers need to meet, and many are still catching up.
Why do you think checkout has become such a critical part of the overall retail experience?
Cart abandonment rates in APAC remain stubbornly high, with approximately 80 percent of online shopping carts abandoned before purchase completion. In this environment, checkout is no longer just a functional endpoint, but a critical brand touchpoint and key driver of conversion. As a merchant, you can have the perfect product, compelling marketing, and seamless browsing experience, but if checkout feels disjointed or clunky, you can still risk cart abandonment. The payment itself needs to be a non-event – invisible and frictionless. When it works perfectly, customers will not even have to think about it. But when it fails, it will be the last thing they remember.
Small details at checkout also make a big impact on conversion rates. Something as simple as reordering payment methods or adjusting the visual hierarchy can lift conversion by several percentage points. Even showing supported card network icons builds consumer trust and minimizes payment friction, which, at scale, translates to significant revenue that many merchants are leaving on the table.
From a commercial standpoint, checkout is increasingly becoming an extension of merchants’ brand experiences. If your brand is premium and carefully curated, but your checkout looks generic or feels disconnected, there will inevitably be cognitive dissonance and a lack of trust. Customers will ultimately notice that inconsistency, even if they cannot articulate why something feels off, and the impact on the overall customer experience will be tangible. Merchants who recognize checkout as a strategic asset rather than a technical necessity will be the ones building a lasting competitive advantage.
Primer talks about a “brand-first” approach to checkout. What does that look like, and why does it matter for retailers?
A brand-first checkout means treating the payment experience as an integral part of your brand identity, not a component that is conveniently bolted onto the end of the customer journey. Traditionally, merchants have been forced into an unfortunate trade-off. Low-code drop-in solutions are quick to implement but rigidly constrained – with little opportunity to align to your brand. On the other hand, customising from scratch requires enormous upfront development costs and ongoing maintenance.
Our approach with the new Primer Checkout eliminates that compromise entirely. Every component is modular and fully customisable. This is not only about the brand look and feel, but it’s also about enabling complete control over your checkout flow, payment method display, and ability to seamlessly embed custom components.
This is particularly important as brand differentiation happens at every touchpoint. If you are a premium fashion retailer, your checkout should feel premium. If you are a gaming platform, it should feel seamless and non-disruptive. The checkout should reinforce your brand promise, not undermine it. You should also be able to achieve this without a six-month development cycle. What we are doing to enable this is starting merchants out with a few lines of code that they can eventually layer with time. This gives merchants both the speed and sophistication needed to launch quickly, then refine continuously as their brands and businesses evolve.
What challenges do retailers face during peak shopping events such as 11.11 or Black Friday, and how can better payments infrastructure help?
Peak shopping events expose every weakness in a merchant’s payments infrastructure. The volume surge is obvious, but maintaining performance under pressure is just as important as handling scale.
The first challenge is availability. When traffic spikes, even small latency issues or outages at a single PSP can cascade into major revenue loss. There have been instances where primary payment gateways experience issues during peak periods, and merchants without fallback options simply lose sales. Having intelligent routing and redundancy built into payments infrastructure becomes essential in this case.
The second challenge is optimization under constraint. During peak events, authorization rates can dip due to increased fraud vigilance from issuers, network congestion, or simply because PSPs are processing unprecedented volumes. Merchants need the ability to route payments intelligently in real-time – directing transactions to the best-performing provider based on factors such as payment method, customer location, or even time of day.
The third challenge is visibility. When things go wrong during peak periods, merchants need instant notification. Real-time monitoring and the ability to quickly diagnose and respond to issues are critical. Better payments infrastructure helps by giving merchants optionality and control. Instead of being locked into a single provider and hoping for the best, they can build resilience through diversity, optimize for performance through intelligent routing, and maintain visibility through unified data and analytics. That makes all the difference between surviving peak events and thriving during them.
Can you share an example of a small checkout change that’s made a big impact for a merchant?
One recent example is fashion retailer Ego. We began working with them after rapid, unexpected growth drove up their cross-border fees, and an inflexible PSP contract started cutting into margins.
They came to Primer, and 7 days later had restructured their payment stack, cutting fees by over S$50,000 a month, and boosting mobile conversions by 10 percent. Given how quickly they wanted to onboard, they selected Primer’s drop-in checkout as a temporary solution before transitioning to Checkout Components. They expected to see a dip in performance with the change, but found it was converting better than their previous setup.
It’s not only about the smoother UI – the speed and stability of the checkout are also key factors. If something fails, the logic gives customers another chance to complete the purchase. These gains make a big difference over time.
What are the most common payment pain points you see during peak sales moments like 11.11 or Black Friday, and how can retailers prepare for them?
The most common pain point would be invisible failures – payments that appear to be working from the merchant’s perspective but are actually underperforming or failing at elevated rates. This might be increased declines from issuers being more conservative during high-volume periods, or latency issues that cause customers to abandon before transactions complete. Another major issue is the inability to respond dynamically.
If a merchant’s primary PSP starts experiencing elevated decline rates or slower response times during peak traffic, they need the ability to shift the load to alternative providers immediately. False declines are also particularly painful during peak events. These are legitimate transactions that get declined due to overly aggressive fraud filters. During high-volume periods, fraud tools often become more conservative, which means that real customers are potentially turned away during key revenue moments.
To prepare, retailers should build redundancy into their infrastructure – have multiple PSPs configured and tested ahead of peak periods. They should aim to implement intelligent routing with the ability to automatically direct payments based on real-time performance data, and stress test their entire stack with simulated failures at different points in the payment flow. Having real-time visibility into authorisation rates, latency, and error rates across all providers will also enable them to spot and address issues before they escalate into significant revenue loss.
The merchants who perform best during peak events are those who have built resilience and flexibility into their infrastructure long before the traffic arrives. Preparation and having the right tools in place will help reduce the firefighting when things do go wrong.
As payments and retail tech evolve so quickly, what do you think will define the next wave of competitive advantage for merchants?
We are entering a stage where the competitive advantage goes to businesses that can move from asking “How can we do this?” to “What if we could?” That shift requires infrastructure that supports growth and does not constrain ambition.
AI-augmented decision-making is likely to define this next wave of differentiation. We are already seeing this at Primer – with AI helping to surface insights, recommend optimisations, and even execute changes with merchant approval. The future will be built on intelligent systems that turn that data into action, with AI companions that continuously monitor processes, identify opportunities, and help merchants capture value that would otherwise be overlooked.
True composability – the ability to quickly plug in new capabilities, test them, and iterate based on results – will also enable greater innovation and speed to market. This applies to payment methods, fraud tools, checkout experiences, and more. The merchants who can experiment with ten different configurations in the time it takes competitors to implement one will have an enormous advantage.
Operational sophistication will be the final piece that paves the way in this “what-if economy”. In the payments space, most merchants stop their optimisation efforts at authorisation. What they need to consider are end-to-end workflows that address the entire payments journey from checkout through to settlement, reconciliation, FX management, and payout. Having unified visibility and control across the entire payments journey, rather than piecing together disparate systems, will be a gamechanger.
Featured image: Philippe Yuan on Unsplash