Consumers under the most financial pressure aren’t abandoning the checkout. They’re choosing payment tools that can give them more control over it.
That’s the central finding of “The New Checkout: Crimped Consumers Lean Into Online Retail and Digital Wallets,” a PYMNTS Intelligence report based on a survey of 2,108 U.S. adults. Seventeen percent of consumers said they had faced a cash shortfall for living expenses or an emergency during the previous 90 days.
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Those consumers shopped differently than people under less strain. They used digital wallets more often, spent more per transaction and favored retailers known for value. The results suggest that a wallet can function like a dashboard, helping shoppers see their spending while gaining access to installment options.
Key Points:
- Wallets gain ground among pressured shoppers. Consumers under high financial stress used a digital wallet for 28% of their most recent retail purchases, compared with 11% among low-stress consumers. For groceries, the shares were 21% and 8%. The report says access to buy now, pay later plans and real-time spending information could help explain the gaps.
- Adoption rises fastest where strain is highest. Among high-stress consumers, wallet use for retail purchases climbed 13 percentage points, to 28% from 15%, between March 2024 and November 2025. Grocery use rose 11 points, to 21% from 10%. Low-stress consumers posted increases of 3 points for retail and 1 point for groceries.
- Younger shoppers lead the move. Thirty-six percent of Gen Z consumers used a wallet for their most recent retail purchase in November 2025, up 21 percentage points from March 2024. Across all consumers, the share reached 15%, a 5-point increase. The pattern gives merchants and financial providers a positive opening to offer clearer budgeting features and flexible ways to pay.
Financial pressure also influenced where and how people shopped. High-stress consumers were 6 percentage points more likely to buy groceries online than low-stress consumers. They spent an average of $109 on their last grocery purchase and $111 on retail, versus $95 and $88 among low-stress shoppers.
Walmart drew 56% of high-stress online grocery shoppers, while Target attracted nearly three times the share of high-stress online retail shoppers as it did low-stress shoppers. Strain also spread unevenly, rising 12 percentage points among Gen Z consumers, 8 points among millennials and 9 points among parents. The findings indicate that consumers are still spending, but they’re using value, visibility and flexibility to keep purchases within reach.
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