Rewards and Easy Payment Options Win Over Mobile Shoppers

The rise of the click-and-mortar shopper, with mobile devices as the key conduit to commerce no matter the channel, has given clues to what consumers expect from their merchants online and offline.

They want ease of use when making payments and rewards tailored to their needs, which would make goods and services a bit more affordable in an uncertain economic environment.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index: The Rise of the Mobile Window Shopper and What It Means for Payments,” commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions, found that the mobile phone is the point of engagement where consumers browse, yes, but also get information that they need to make decisions at the moment of purchase. Global consumers have used a smartphone in nearly half of their most recent retail purchases, which gives forward-thinking merchants the one-stop point of engagement to present the payment choices and rewards offerings that can help seal the deal.

What Consumers Want

Consumers who prefer to buy online via mobile devices and computers cited convenience as the reason they shop via those channels. Mobile devices also outperform other options as a faster way to purchase, a factor cited by 58% of consumers. But speed must be accompanied by the payments they want — say, debit or buy now, pay later (BNPL) — which is top of mind for more than half of consumers. Stored payment credentials dominate how consumers complete transactions, as 45% store with a merchant and an additional 9% do so in their browser.

Among shoppers who became more willing to store payment information with merchants over the last year, there has been widespread recognition of the benefits of doing so. Drilling down into the willingness to store credentials, 56% named speed as a determining factor, 53% cited convenience, and 43% pointed to trust as the reason they chose to store their credentials.

Rewards are also a key incentive when it comes to doing business, examining the goods, and then checking out after hitting the buy button. Three-quarters of consumers said they would use those preferred payment methods, which in turn means they would become buyers rather than browsers.

The report found that 67% of shoppers said they either earned or wanted to earn rewards at the merchants where they had made their last purchase, which offers a roadmap to firms that want to boost recurring payments and bolster consumer loyalty.

Gauging the State of Readiness

The onus is on merchants to meet those demands, but there’s a gulf between desire and ability. The data found that about 60% of merchants said their payment technology cannot support the drive to give those mobile-first shoppers what they want.

They are concerned, at least a bit, by how their payment technologies are falling short in terms of meeting consumers’ needs across omnichannel commerce. The report found that 57% of merchants reported offering a unified experience, including 41% that are planning upgrades to their experiences.