I live in Germany, and I always wondered: how Germans buy online and/or book hotels/tickets online, if most of them don't have credit cards and only have this EC-Karte?
This differs quite a big on the size of the respective business (of sales).
Amazon.de e.g. offers the choice of
* credit card (as internationally)
* direct withdrawal (meaning you give them your bank account details and they withdraw the amount directly - sort of sketchy from the customer's point of view, but no different from credit cards - if anything goes awry, you just challenge the charge directly with the bank instead of the card issuer)
* bill-based (generally only for small amounts or trusted customers - might involve a "credit score" check from Schufa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schufa) to deter fraud)
I have a credit card for that, but if I have the option, I always use Paypal. There are often other payment options though, like "Sofortüberweisung", paying on account or SEPA bank transfers (the last two more typically for b2b though).
Amazon.de e.g. offers the choice of * credit card (as internationally) * direct withdrawal (meaning you give them your bank account details and they withdraw the amount directly - sort of sketchy from the customer's point of view, but no different from credit cards - if anything goes awry, you just challenge the charge directly with the bank instead of the card issuer) * bill-based (generally only for small amounts or trusted customers - might involve a "credit score" check from Schufa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schufa) to deter fraud)