How Oriflame grew approval rates by 35% in key markets

PayU and Oriflame: How PayU’s global payment solution helps Oriflame drive success in emerging markets and beyond

Founded in Sweden in 1967, Oriflame is a social selling beauty company with market operations in over 60 countries and a diverse portfolio of nature-inspired, innovative beauty and wellness products sold and marketed through approximately 3 million Oriflame brand partners. In over half of the company’s global markets, Oriflame is the market leader.

As one of the leading companies in direct sales of cosmetics and wellness in the world, Oriflame needed a reliable and supportive payment partner that could offer all relevant and popular online payment methods across existing markets and new geographies, while helping the company to act quickly to respond to changing e-commerce shopper expectations and optimize conversion rates, while retaining and increasing its customer base.

Keep reading to see how leveraging PayU’s global reach and local expertise helped Oriflame to achieve the above objectives and increase approval rates cumulatively by 35% in emerging markets.

While extending Oriflame’s business across EMEA, integrating numerous local payment methods was expensive and time-consuming, hence the need for cost efficiency from an operational and integration perspective.

Oriflame saw the value of using one single API for all the countries of interest, instead of closing multiple contracts with local banks, all while managing different integrations and dealing with high FX costs. 

PayU distinguished itself as the right partner for Oriflame by being a leading payment provider in emerging markets, while having both the local experience and global expertise to address complexities related to Oriflame’s business expansion and growth, in order to drive traction in high-growing markets.

Many factors have been at the core of this successful partnership across EMEA. PayU’s direct connection with a large network of banks and local acquirers, supported by an extensive portfolio of local payment methods and currencies, has played a major role. Ease of onboarding, cost efficiency (driven by the use of a single payment integration for all of Oriflame’s markets), competitive fee rates, and excellent FX rates have also helped drive success.

“Over the past few years, we have gone from no online payments at all to about 40% of our total business being paid online,” said Marcus Fogel, Senior Director, Global Digital Services at Oriflame. “Most of this is done through one of our global payment partners like PayU.”

By working together with PayU to grow and expand its online business in EMEA, Oriflame has already seen significant improvements in the global online customer experience – as well as its e-commerce bottom line.

Michal Musil, Global Online Payments Manager for Oriflame, summed up the impacts of working with PayU: “We’ve seen our approval rates grow in all emerging markets where we partner with PayU. The total approval rates increase in all countries is summed up at 35% – which  is largely due to PayU’s proactive support and direct connections with card schemes, banks, acquirers and issuers in markets where we operate.” 

With over 2 million annual Oriflame transactions now processed through PayU, Oriflame has achieved a 35% cumulative increase in approval rates in emerging markets year-over-year, unlocking over $100 million in total payment volume.

As a single, direct API connection to accepting and optimizing online payments in any global market, PayU’s global payment platform, offers access to hundreds of local and global online payment methods while streamlining payment security and leveraging the latest in payment routing and optimization technology. That’s why the PayU platform proved to be the right platform for new and existing Oriflame markets, as an all-in-one portal designed to help merchants get the most out of their online payments. 

PayU’s local teams also provided legal consultancy and expert assistance in order to support Oriflame’s business expansion journey across new markets. Their local expertise was crucial to enabling a fast and safe legal setup for the merchant in previously untapped geographies.

Thriving in Central & Eastern Europe by meeting local consumer expectations

In Central and Eastern European markets, increasing the conversion rate, the need for a complete stack of alternative payment methods at checkout, multiple integrations with banks, and decreasing operational efforts were among the key challenges on Oriflame’s end.

The company was therefore on the lookout for a business partner that would help achieve higher approval rates and optimize payment traffic.

In Poland for example, the ability to offer local alternative payment methods via PayU helped Oriflame to reduce operational costs, increase their customer base, and enable a better customer experience by localizing the checkout experience. Some of the key payment methods which Oriflame was able to offer through PayU include BLIK – which boasts highest approval rates and is the fastest growing payment method in the country – as well as multiple pay-by-link (PBL) and credit-based options.

The results in the last year included:

• Over 20% increase in overall approval rates 
• Over 21% growth in BNPL approval rates year-over-year 
• 8.8% increase in card approval rates year-over-year, also driven by 3DS implementation 

The online credit payment method enabled by PayU in Poland through a quick and easy integration was a particular differentiator on the local market, significantly boosting online revenues for Oriflame across this market. 

PayU’s industry-leading range of payment options enabled strong growth of online payments in Oriflame across two other European markets, thus leading to a 13.4% growth in approval rates year-over-year for PayByLink transactions in Slovakia. In other major markets, approval rates jumped by over 20%, driven by access to local payment methods and scheme cards.

Opening up new territories in Africa

Tapping into African markets was a key objective on Oriflame’s roadmap for global expansion. PayU was ready to take up this challenge,  helping the merchant to expanding its footprint in the region, while at the same time providing online payment processing for Oriflame’s biggest markets in Europe. 

With popular local and alternative payment methods driving e-commerce growth in the region by providing more options in terms of how consumers pay for goods, accommodating local payment preferences was a key strategic factor for Oriflame. This included providing Ghanaian shoppers with the ability to pay by card, along with offering popular mobile money payment methods such as MTN MoMo, Vodafone Cash, Airtel Money, and Tigo Pesa.

By gaining access to the Ghanaian market via a single integration through the PayU payments platform, Oriflame achieved approval rates for alternative payment methods-driven transactions of 60% in this particular market. 

And in Nigeria, a key market for Oriflame, online shoppers can now buy Oriflame products and pay via card and bank transfers.  

Overall, PayU improved approval rates for Oriflame across the region, while reducing operational costs, centralizing existing countries under one single payment integration, and helping the merchant to enable locally relevant payment methods and open up new markets. 

PayU is set to continue supporting Oriflame in its journey to fulfill its ambitious growth plans for this year by expanding and growing into emerging markets  like Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey.  

“PayU remains a reliable payments partner for our current and future business expansion,” said Marcus Fogel, Oriflame. “It has an impressive team with a wealth of global and local experience and the support they’re providing is already proving invaluable. 

“This partnership will continue to support our company’s overall initiative to ensure the delivery of best-in-class experiences for our customers looking to shopping online, while ensuring transactions are fast, secure and cost-efficient.”