$349 Billion Could Move Through a Much Smarter Checkout

A good offer can lose its value when the shopper never sees it. That problem gets expensive fast when the missed moment happens at checkout.

“The Smart Basket Opportunity: How Merchants Can Capture More Consumer Spending” was produced in collaboration with FIS. PYMNTS Intelligence independently designed, fielded and analyzed the research. The report draws on a survey of 60 merchants across grocery, retail, eCommerce, restaurant and food service businesses. Respondents held leadership or decision-making roles in marketing, sales, operations or merchandising.

The findings show that merchants are ready to make checkout work harder. Most already use checkout as a promotion channel, and many say it delivers stronger results than other tools. That gives smart checkout a clear opening. It can help merchants identify eligible offers as the shopper pays, apply them with less friction and improve the value of the basket.

The report also shows why today’s promotion systems often fall short. Many offers depend on codes, paper coupons, loyalty accounts or messages that shoppers may never open. Merchants also struggle to connect data across systems. That limits their ability to act on what is inside a shopper’s basket in real time.

Smart checkout offers a more direct path. It can bring discounts, rewards and brand-funded offers into the payment flow. Merchants see the upside, but they also want control. They want to set the offer rules, protect their margins and see clear proof that the system is driving sales.

Download the Playbook The Smart Basket Opportunity: How Merchants Can Capture More Consumer Spending

In “The Smart Basket Opportunity: How Merchants Can Capture More Consumer Spending,” learn how:

Personalized offers often miss their mark. Seventy-three percent of merchants use targeted offers, yet only 48% call them their most successful promotion tool. The gap shows where smarter checkout could improve results.

Different merchant sectors see different growth paths. Restaurants show the strongest interest in real-time checkout investment, while retailers and grocers bring their own channel strengths and loyalty programs to the model.

Data sharing depends on visible value. Merchants want a clear link between shared data and higher sales. They also want transparency, privacy protections and firm limits on how partners use their information.

The report gives merchants, payment platforms, issuers, networks, loyalty teams and technology providers a practical view of where smart checkout is heading. It shows where the strongest demand sits, which barriers still slow progress and how partners can build systems merchants will trust.

Download the report to see how smarter checkout can help turn more offers into completed sales.

About the Playbook

“The Smart Basket Opportunity: How Merchants Can Capture More Consumer Spending” is based on a survey of 60 merchants across grocery and supermarket, retail, and restaurant and food service businesses. The report examines how merchants currently run promotions and offers, and how ready they are to participate in an embedded smart checkout system. In this approach, the basket is evaluated in real time at the point of sale so that eligible product-level offers, loyalty rewards and brand-funded incentives can be identified, optimized and applied automatically—without requiring the shopper to activate anything in advance. Our sample consisted of merchants whose respondents held leadership or decision-making roles in marketing, sales, operations or merchandising at their organizations. Segment comparisons throughout the report are shown for restaurants, retail and grocery specifically.