Report Finds More Than One-Third of Small Business Shoppers Manually Enter Payment Data

To thrive in today’s fragmented retail landscape, small and medium-sized businesses must close the digital divide and embrace unified commerce strategies.

It’s a good summary of PYMNTS’ new 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index: SMB Edition, which surveyed 18,468 consumers and 3,464 merchants across eight countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the UAE and Australia. The report, commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions, examines how small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), defined by country-specific annual revenue thresholds, are navigating the evolving digital commerce environment and competing with larger entities. It highlights that while SMBs are crucial engines of retail growth and economic hearts of local communities, many face a significant “digital-first deficit,” often remaining primarily physical-first despite increasing consumer preference for digital experiences. The time and financial commitment required for this digital transformation can seem challenging for SMBs.

The report champions unified commerce — moving beyond omnichannel to provide a seamless, mobile-first shopping experience with frictionless navigation across channels. Implementing unified commerce can directly boost merchant sales, allowing SMBs that offer this experience to achieve the same revenue growth as large companies. Globally, SMBs are less likely than large merchants to offer a seamless cross-channel shopping experience, but those that do are more likely to report both past and expected future revenue growth. The report proposes a roadmap to guide SMBs in meeting the needs of the unified shopper, emphasizing steps like becoming digital first, converting mobile window shoppers, removing payments friction, closing the checkout gap and using technology to play big.

Key data points from the report include:

SMBs are nearly four times as likely to operate only in physical channels compared to large merchants. Furthermore, online-only SMBs tend to offer a smaller range of digital channels, utilizing 1.9 on average compared to 2.6 for large online-only merchants.

Payment friction remains a significant hurdle for SMBs. More than one-third of online shoppers manually entered their payment information when purchasing from SMBs. Shoppers were also more than twice as likely to face payment processing errors at SMBs compared to large merchants.

Regarding payment capabilities, the report indicates SMBs show significant rates of partnering with third parties, including third-party payment platforms (52.7%) and marketplaces (42.1%). They are also more likely than large merchants to utilize platforms developed in-house (41.3%).

The report further explores additional avenues for SMBs to enhance competitiveness. It details the importance of converting mobile window shoppers, noting that those who browse on their phones frequently are three times more likely to make purchases. SMBs are encouraged to prioritize mobile-compatible sites, which offer a lower-cost solution compared to developing dedicated mobile apps.

Closing the checkout gap involves prioritizing digital features consumers want regardless of merchant size, such as digitally available product details, easy-to-navigate online stores, stored order history, and product reviews. Crucially, SMBs need to streamline payments by offering features like stored payment credentials, auto-filled information, biometrics and buy now, pay later (BNPL) options. To implement these enterprise-level capabilities without extensive in-house investment, leveraging third-party partnerships is presented as a key strategy for SMBs to “play big.”