Remember your first time entering a candy store as a child and feeling your eyes light up at its colorful array of delectable delights? Today, the Germany-based online retailer World of Sweets rekindles that magic for treat lovers of all ages, delivering both familiar favorites and novel treats directly to their doors.
“We are Germany’s largest online store for sweets and snacks. Currently, we offer roughly over 10,000 products,” says Franco Sterl, Director of Sales, Marketing, and Business Development at World of Sweets. “Our selection includes well-known brands and a wide variety of international items and product innovations.”
For nearly a decade, World of Sweets has used Amazon Pay to create a trusted shopping experience that keeps customers returning month after month. The results speak for themselves, from increased first-time buyer rates to improved customer retention.
Transforming online candy sales with customer-first solutions
As an exclusively web-based retailer, World of Sweets has spent over 20 years perfecting the art of online candy sales to delight their customers. The business adapts to the seasons, expanding operations to meet high demand around holidays like Christmas and Easter and modifying shipping practices to protect frugal products during the warmer months of the year.
In 2015, founder Markus Heide applied this customer-centric approach to the company’s payment processing service. As World of Sweets continued to grow, Heide sought to build trust with first-time buyers while streamlining the checkout experience for returning customers. The business’s ambitious growth plans required a payment solution that could elevate the customer experience while scaling seamlessly with their expansion.
We chose Amazon Pay because it was already a trusted and widely used payment method, and many of our customers were familiar with it and used it regularly. Our founder had a vision that Amazon Pay would make the ordering process faster and easier, allowing our customers to use their preferred payment method and shipping details for a seamless shopping experience.
Implementing reliable payment solutions to improve customer confidence
World of Sweets implemented Amazon Pay across both desktop and mobile, providing a stable and trusted payment option for customers throughout Germany and the DACH region. This reliability has proved especially valuable as the company faces challenges from counterfeit websites that copy their store design and product listings to deceive customers.
“Using Amazon Pay has helped us add value and trust to our shop,” says Sterl. “Customers specifically look for the Amazon Pay button on our website as verification of authenticity. For them, it’s a trusted signal that they’re on our legitimate site.”
The retailer has continually made improvements to their Amazon Pay implementation over the years. In 2020, they upgraded to Amazon Pay Checkout v2, working with a small but dedicated team of external developers to facilitate a smooth transition. The upgrade helped World of Sweets maintain the stable, reliable payment experience that their customers had come to rely on.
Amazon Pay now accounts for 10% of the merchant’s payment volume, with consistent year-over-year growth. Cart-abandonment rates remain below 2%, and shoppers using Amazon Pay return to make purchases more frequently than those using other payment methods, with a median time between orders of less than 30 days.
The seamless checkout experience and stored shipping details make it easy for repeat customers to order their favorite treats again and again, and the Amazon brand instills more confidence in shoppers contemplating their first purchase. “Amazon Pay helps us generate more new customers,” says Sterl. “Around 39% of Amazon Pay users in 2024 were first-time buyers—way higher than with other payment methods. This demonstrates that new visitors who have Amazon Pay accounts feel more confident shopping with us.”
Scaling customer trust across new European markets
World of Sweets plans to expand their reach across Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, Nordic countries, France, and Spain. They recently added translation capabilities to their website, previously only available in German, to better serve these new markets. The company’s success with Amazon Pay—from high first-time buyer rates to strong customer retention—leaves them well-positioned to build trust with new customers in these regions.
For nearly two decades, World of Sweets has built their success on building, earning, and keeping the trust of their customers. Amazon Pay has helped them provide a payment experience that matches this commitment. “World of Sweets reflects stability, and therefore, we also need stable providers,” says Sterl. “Everything our founder implements has a long-term vision and strategy, and Amazon Pay is the best example of this.”