My Path in Payments: Zetti Zahari, Senior Product Owner for Payment at zooplus

As Senior Product Owner for payment at zooplus, one of Europe’s leading online pet retailers, Zetti Zahari started her nine-year journey there looking for more than a typical product management role. She wanted to work somewhere she believed in, where happy customers matter as much to the business as they do to her.

When she arrived, zooplus was just beginning to build its payments platform. Zetti seized the chance to shape it. To this day, her team still owns it.

Surprisingly, her path didn’t begin in payments or product management. From software engineering to B2B product marketing, Zetti’s career hasn’t been linear. So, what sparked her leap into payments? Let’s find out.

Drawn to impact: How customer focus led the way

While working as a product marketer for a company serving Malaysia’s top 100 enterprises, Zetti gained a new perspective – one rooted in business goals and customer value. Collaborating closely with product managers, she found herself drawn to their world.

What sealed the shift? Customer-centricity. Zetti describes it as a “natural inclination to move towards customer-facing products” that set the next part of her career in motion. “I was energized by seeing the direct impact of my decisions in B2C environments.” Zetti shares. Owning the customer experience from the start of their journey, interacting with the product, to the final outcome. 

Her fascination with payments came shortly after, during a role at a subscription-based online dating platform. There, she saw firsthand how payments can make or break the user experience. It sparked a lasting interest in how customer behavior shapes, and is shaped by, the payment journey.

Life as a Senior Product Owner

As Senior Product Owner for payments at zooplus, Zetti drives the company’s payments product strategy – where customer needs, business growth, and payments technology intersect. For Zetti, the most compelling part of the role is using payments to directly influence both customer satisfaction and commercial performance. 

That means offering the right payment methods and delivering a smooth experience across every touchpoint: web, mobile, and app. With mobile dominating and the app quickly gaining ground, Zetti ensures the payment experience supports evolving user behavior.

Her work is deeply tied to zooplus’ broader business goals. These guide her team’s priorities and initiatives, shaping a roadmap that puts customer experience at the core of growth.

How mobile, localization, and BNPL are reshaping payments

When asked about the biggest shifts in the payments landscape, Zetti didn’t hesitate: mobile comes first. She points to the Nordics, where payment methods like Vipps, MobilePay, and Swish dominate, as proof of how device preferences now shape payment behavior.

Next up: localization. Over the past decade, every market has developed its own preferred ways to pay. “It’s not just about mobile payment methods,” Zetti explains. “It’s also about making payment methods local. Think iDeal and Trustly in the Netherlands, Trustee or Paytrail in the Nordics, Bizum in Spain, MB Way in Portugal, or Blik in Poland. Every region has its own ecosystem.”

And customers respond to what they know. Local brands build trust – and trust drives conversion. When customers feel secure in the payment journey, they’re more likely to pay. Zetti has championed this strategy at zooplus, helping the business tailor its payments offering across 30 markets. The impact? Clear gains at checkout. “If customers don’t see their preferred method, they leave,” she says. “It’s that simple.”

Another trend Zetti flags is the rise of buy now, pay later (BNPL). Driven by economic pressure and demand for flexibility, BNPL has gone from optional to expected. “Customers ask for it,” she notes. “And if it’s not offered, they notice.”

The future of ecommerce

As a digital consumer, it’s hard to think back to a time when we weren’t shopping for almost everything on our phones. But it wasn’t always that way. From in-store to desktop to mobile, the way we shop has evolved fast. So what’s next? 

Zetti sees AI as the next leap. “People will start buying directly through their AI tools – ChatGPT, Gemini. You’ll tell it, ‘I have a cat who loves this food, where’s the best deal?’ And soon, you’ll be able to pay on the spot. AI is already changing how we search and learn; shopping is next.” 

Agentic commerce – where AI agents act on behalf of the shopper – is already here, with features like Perplexity’s Buy with Pro and Amazon’s Buy for Me, but it’s early days. The next frontier? Smooth, AI-driven transactions that start and finish without ever opening a browser.

Driving the payments strategy at zooplus

Zetti’s strategic focus at zooplus is clear: scale growth through subscription-based payments. Auto Shipment, zooplus’s pet food subscription service, offers customers convenience by automating repeat purchases. Instead of manually reordering every few weeks, customers set up recurring payments and let zooplus handle the rest.

As part of zooplus’s loyalty landscape, customers can collect zooPoints and use them to make purchases or make percentage savings by subscribing to Auto Shipment. 

A critical enabler of the subscription experience is secure payment data storage. By vaulting and tokenizing card details, zooplus ensures recurring payments can happen smoothly, without the customer present.

This is where strong relationships with the card schemes come in. Scheme-backed tokenization plays a key role in recurring payments, and keeping close to scheme roadmaps helps zooplus stay ahead. “Early insight into scheme developments and token performance is essential,” Zetti explains. “It’s how we future-proof our integrations and innovations.”

Zetti’s primary focus is driven by the broader company strategy and how payments can boost it. That means continuing to enhance customer satisfaction, removing friction from the customer journey, and partnering with providers who offer the best integration possibilities.

Venturing into new regions and navigating cross-border payments

With zooplus active in 30 markets, Zetti has deep experience managing cross-border payments. She’s clear on her stance when it comes to global expansion: local payment methods are non-negotiable. And choosing the right providers is just as critical. “Each region has payment providers who know the landscape inside out and can offer easy integrations with local payment methods. Merchants need that local expertise to get it right.” Zetti says. 

To scale efficiently, Zetti recommends working with a payment orchestrator. It simplifies complexity and accelerates go-to-market speed for new payment methods.

The priority? Don’t fall into the trap of integration complexity. Give customers access to their preferred way to pay – fast. Because in cross-border ecommerce, speed and simplicity at checkout make all the difference.

Last thing you bought online: Flight tickets to Malaysia, my homeland

Favorite hobby: Reading criminal and investigative fiction

Favorite sport: Functional strength 

Office or hybrid: Hybrid

Digital wallet or physical wallet: Sooo digital

Early bird or night owl: Night owl

In-store or online: Online for everything except sportswear

You’re the biggest fan of: My two beautiful sons 

Translating payments for the C-Suite

CEOs don’t always have the time to learn the technical details of vaulting or local payment methods. But it’s important they understand how payments drive revenue and customer satisfaction. As a payments expert, it’s your job to make that connection clear – using data and KPIs that speak their language.

For Zetti, it’s all about the numbers. “If you can really see a change, you can really show the change,” she says. That might mean quantifying incremental net sales after launching a new payment method in a particular market. For example: “After we introduced Klarna in a few markets, we saw incremental annual sales amounting to millions of euros.”

“I like to build business cases in collaboration with other teams, anchored in the data that matters. Sometimes that’s the exit rate or conversion rate. Other times, it’s cost savings or projected return. The key is aligning insights with the CEO’s priorities and the business goals.” Zetti explains.

Ultimately, data-led conversations that show how payments fuel growth are what resonate at the executive level.

Building a leading payments team 

Zetti believes every high-performing payments team needs a strong architect; someone who designs with scale and resilience in mind. Without long-term thinking and a view on where the business is heading, systems can quickly buckle under growing transaction volumes, especially during peak seasons. 

Beyond architecture, success depends on collaboration. Front-end and back-end developers, customer experience designers, and data analysts all play a role in refining the payment journey. Together, they ensure the platform is fast, reliable, and optimized for growth every step of the way.

The importance of getting it right during peak season

Even with years of experience, Zetti stays curious. “I’m still learning new things every year,” she says, especially when it comes to keeping platforms running smoothly during high-traffic events like Black Friday. 

Preparation is everything. Forecasting order volumes in advance helps ensure the system is equipped to handle demand, avoiding delays that could disrupt fulfillment operations downstream. “Any delay in payment processing holds up orders. It’s a chain reaction.”

Zetti’s guide to peak-season readiness:

• Freeze new releases: Avoid launching new features or products during peak periods. With such high volumes of new business coming in, stability comes first – every resource should be focused on ensuring a friction-free payment flow. 
• Tackle issues head-on: If your systems struggle under pressure, don’t wait. Work with engineers and your payment architect to identify root causes and strengthen your setup ahead of the next surge.
• Stay ahead of fraud: With soaring transaction volumes, fraud attempts spike. Sophisticated fraudsters constantly evolve their tactics, so your defenses must evolve too. Partnering with AI-powered fraud prevention tools gives you the speed and accuracy to detect dynamic threats in real time. For businesses processing at scale, fraud prevention isn’t optional – it’s critical.

Forging a successful career in payments

Zetti’s advice starts with perspective: “Think like a customer”. She continues, “Whether you’re in ecommerce or another vertical, immerse yourself in the payment experience. What do you expect as a shopper? Is the process easy, secure, and trustworthy? Combine that mindset with real interactions. Listen to customer feedback and pain points. That’s how you spot friction, uncover gaps, and shape a better payment journey.”

Next: let data guide you. Every change should be measured. If the data moves, ask why. If it doesn’t, ask why not. Data exposes trends. And if performance drops? Act fast. “Data should be incredibly close to your heart as a product manager,” she says. 

Finally, stay curious. Talk to your engineers. Ask questions. Build your technical fluency. A successful career in payments is about building expertise, adapting, and always seeking what’s next – having a growth mindset. 

Interested in discovering more journeys from payments experts? Explore our My Path in Payments series for other insightful stories.