Sofort

Accepting more payment methods helps your business expand its global reach and improve checkout conversion. If you have plans to enter new markets in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands or Spain, you may want to offer your customers to pay with Sofort, one of the most common payment options in these countries.

You can accept Stripe — easy and fast payment solution to boost your online sales. With Stripe you can receive customer payments from all over the world in different ways such as credit cards, mobile wallets, and dozens of other options your customers use. And compared to other international payment methods, the price for using Sofort as a payment method is lower.

Sofort works only with Euro currency. You can change your store currency from the store admin, in Settings → General → Regional Settings → Currency.

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Setting up Sofort

To set up Sofort in your store:

1. From your store admin, go to Payment.
2. Scroll down and Choose Payment Method → SOFORT Banking (via Stripe).
3. Click Connect Sofort. You’ll be redirected to a page where you can log in to your existing Stripe account or create a new one.
4. Upon login your Stripe account will connect with store and redirect you back to your store. Sofort payment method will be added to your store checkout. Make sure Sofort is activated in your Stripe account.
5. In the Payment method name at checkout field you can enter the name under which customers see this payment method at checkout or leave it as Sofort.
6. Make sure that the Enable this payment method at checkout setting is turned on to display Sofort at checkout.
7. In the Payment instructions for customers field you can add a description of the Sofort payment method for your customers, it will appear at the checkout. For example, you can list EU countries where customers can pay with Sofort.

That’s it. Stripe will notify you via email as soon as Sofort has been activated. This may take up to 30 minutes. Once everything is set up, you can accept payments with Sofort in your store.

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Accepting payments with Sofort

After you enable Sofort in your store, your customers from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain will be able to choose this payment option at checkout. As soon as they choose Sofort as the payment option, they will be redirected to the Sofort website, where they should select their bank, log in with their online banking details and enter a one-time verification code to authorize the payment. You can check how the payment process looks like on a mobile device in this quick video about Sofort.

Sofort has delayed notification of payment success. That means a bank transfer from your customer’s bank to you can take several days — from 2 to 14 days. Usually it takes 3 business days starting with the moment your customer placed an order in your store and paid it with Sofort.

Payment methods with delayed notification such as Sofort can’t guarantee payment during the delay. During this fund transfer period, the payment status of the order paid with Sofort can be shown as Awaiting Payment. As soon as you receive the payment, the order status automatically switches to Paid. It’s up to you to decide whether to fulfill the order before you receive a bank transfer or not.

You can always check what payment method has been used for an order by viewing an order’s details in your store admin, My Sales → Orders. For a Sofort payment method you will see Sofort in the payment details.