What are the best payment gateway options for a South African business?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

South African Shopify merchants face limited payment gateway choices, especially for selling to US/EU customers, because Shopify Payments isn’t available locally. Key friction points are currency handling (ZAR vs USD) and bank payout requirements.

Guidance from Shopify: keep the store in the native currency (ZAR), use a supported South African gateway, and use a currency display app; checkout still occurs in ZAR. PayPal Express currency support must be confirmed directly with PayPal.

Paths explored:

  • 2Checkout: requested months of sales history, making it impractical for new stores.
  • USD-first setup: switch store currency to USD, open/verify a PayPal Business account, link it to an FNB (First National Bank) account, activate PayPal in Shopify, and receive payouts in USD. Trade‑off: you lose access to SA gateways (PayFast, Peach Payments, Yoco) and may deter local ZAR buyers.
  • ZAR-first setup: keep ZAR and use PayFast (cards/EFT); ask PayFast to enable multi‑currency so buyers choose currency at redirect.
  • Offshore/alternative routes: Stripe Atlas (US company/bank) to access Shopify Payments; consider WooCommerce with Peach Payments for custom multi‑currency checkout.

Status: no single “straightforward” solution; merchants pick between USD+PayPal or ZAR+local gateways. Discussion remains unresolved.

Summarized with AI on December 13. AI used: gpt-5.
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Hi all and Hi @Shopify_77

I can relate to what everyone has said on this thread.

I have had the same problems since 2018 with Payment Gateways.

Without going into all long details of back and forth with Shopify, let me just say, I think all South African eCommerce Stores should boycott and leave Shopify!

Only then will Shopify start caring what we the Merchants want.

At one point I had to run two Stores, one in USD just to use PayPal, and the main website in ZAR (Rand)!

Imagine the nightmare of managing two separate stores that have 10,000 to 20,000 products, let alone costs!

We want to sell to both South Africa and internationally, but Shopify makes it impossible.

I had to decide to close or pause the store that’s in USD. Worse still is that we sell both electronics and offer services. Imagine quoting South African customers in USD! Or making them checkout via PayPal in USD!

I’m actually considering WooCommerce just to be able to sell in Multi-Currency.

For now, we are stuck with offering services to mainly South African market and with a few international shoppers who don’t mind paying in ZAR at checkout. Even with all currency switcher Apps on the front end with geo-locators, customers still abandon carts when the checkout Currency switches back to ZAR.

I just refuse to change the Store currency to USD just to be able to use PayPal, for a business that is based in South Africa. Yes, I’m getting tons of losses for this move, but loyalty comes first for me. I would rather the South African shoppers buy in their local currency than forcing them to pay in USD just to get an extra buck!

Shopify can solve this issue by providing Shopify Payments to South African Merchants so that all shoppers can pay in their own Preferred currencies.

I use Payfast and Yoco payment gateways, which are specifically for SA market. But our international shoppers are frustrated that they can’t checkout, cause some don’t know ZAR and are skeptical with the whole Currency conversion or exchange rates. Plus they don’t know Payfast nor Yoco.

Shopify is killing the eCommerce industry in SA. I still maintain, when Shopify starts losing Merchants to their competitors like WooCommerce, they will start addressing this Payment Gateway issue.

We have customers in USA, EU, India and other African countries. Some even send mail to request for Quotes for Wire Transfer or PayPal invoice so that they can pay via PayPal Supported Currencies. Imagine that!

Give us payment features that the rest of the world has. Stop taking us for granted!

Thank you.

Chichi