Shoppers say they are unlikely to return to online stores that are not transparent about additional costs, such as transaction fees and currency conversion fees. 

Cross-border payments specialist Airwallex commissioned Edgar Dunn & Co to survey consumers on their e-commerce preferences and found a large number (39 per cent) of Australians were using international shopping sites because of better pricing and product choice.

More than half of global consumers expect to increase their buying from overseas merchants.

But 68 per cent of Australian consumers said they would not return to an online shop that was not transparent about additional fees and charges. 

Lengthy refund processes were another bugbear, with 47 per cent of consumers globally saying refund processing times were a problem.

Seventy-seven per cent of consumers said they would abandon their cart if their preferred payment method was not available. Among Australian consumers, the figure was slightly higher, at 78 per cent.

Globally, credit cards are the most frequently used payment method among online shoppers using international merchants, at 39 per cent, followed by global digital wallets (26 percent).

The proportion of payments made by Australian consumers using digital wallets is higher than the global average, at 37 per cent. China has the highest take-up of payment for purchase of goods online with digital wallets, at 48 per cent.

Thirty-eight per cent of Australian consumers said they would use an instalment-based payment method (buy now pay later) when shopping with a cross-border online merchant. The global average is 53 per cent.

Globally, 61 per cent of respondents said they had confidence in the security of their personal and financial information when buying from international merchants. Among Australian consumers, the confidence level was only 48 per cent.