Visa said that the offer of the preferred payment method is decisive to prevent high-value shoppers from abandoning their purchase at checkout. The finding comes from the sixth edition of the Global Digital Shopping Index, a survey conducted by Visa Acceptance in partnership with PYMNTS Intelligence.
In an interview with Karen Webster, Michele Herron, senior vice president and head of Value-Added Services at Visa in North America, said that “the data shows that the best shoppers are enabled by AI.” According to her, consumers who browse frequently and use their phones while shopping have a strong affinity for AI tools.
The research indicates that AI users have 52 digital shopping days per month, compared with 21 for those who do not use AI. High-income consumers record 54 days. The indicator considers each occasion, in a month, when the consumer uses a digital device to shop.
The study also indicates that about two-thirds of consumers consider payment preference and acceptance when choosing where to shop, compared with 58% two years earlier.
Challenges for retailers
Herron said that payments are best when invisible, but they need to work exactly as the consumer expects. “They have to work the way the consumer wants,” she said.
The executive highlighted the difficulty retailers face in identifying consumers who arrive through AI agents. Many do not recognize the customer behind the agent and miss the opportunity to preserve the loyalty experience, she said.
The survey shows that only about 15% of retailers have machine-readable catalogs. Herron said that an AI agent navigating websites designed for people encounters a failure rate of about 70% at some point in the purchase journey.
Visa says it works with clients to make product information machine-readable and to develop protocols for identifying legitimate shopping agents. Tokenization is also used to link agent activity to the end consumer.
For Herron, the industry does not need to predict which AI platform will be dominant. The recommendation is to prepare the commerce infrastructure for the agent the consumer chooses.
