Retail & Ecommerce · Customer since 2023
Northwind Outfitters
A Nordic outdoor apparel brand moved to local acquiring and duty-inclusive pricing across its European markets.
- card acceptance in Germany
- +3.4 pts
- parcels refused at delivery
- −41%
- local acquiring entities live
- 3
Illustrative figures for a fictional customer.
The challenge
Northwind sold into eleven European countries from a single acquiring relationship in Sweden. Cross-border card transactions were declined more often than domestic ones, and the gap was widest in Germany, its second-largest market.
Shoppers outside the EU were also meeting duties and import fees at the door. Some refused the parcel, which turned a sale into a return shipment and a refund the team had to chase manually.
The solution
Northwind added local acquiring entities in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, so transactions in those markets are processed as domestic. Routing is set per country, and the original acquirer stays in place as a fallback.
For orders shipped to Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom, Duties & Taxes calculates the landed cost at checkout and collects it upfront. The customer pays one price, and the carrier no longer asks for anything on delivery.
We stopped guessing which fees would land on an order. Duty-inclusive prices took returns down with them.