The next fight for consumer loyalty may start before checkout, when shoppers are still deciding what belongs in the cart.
A new PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Embedded Offers: The Billion-Dollar Opportunity Inside Recent Consumer Spending,” produced in collaboration with FIS, finds that many consumers are not ignoring discounts because they dislike savings. They are missing them because the current system makes offers hard to see, hard to use or poorly matched to what people planned to buy.
Based on a U.S. Census-balanced survey of 2,754 U.S. adult consumers, the report estimated that $42.4 billion in recent grocery, retail and restaurant spending is tied to missed or unredeemed offers. That equals 34% of the $125.4 billion in recent spending examined across those categories.
The more important finding may be that consumers are ready for something simpler. They want offers to appear earlier, apply automatically and work with the brands and payment methods they already prefer.
For merchants, banks, card issuers and consumer brands, that creates a new path to loyalty that is less about blasting more promotions and more about removing the work from saving money.
Three findings show how much behavior could shift:
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- Eighty-nine percent of consumers say it would be at least somewhat valuable to see all product-level discounts while building their shopping basket or cart. That includes 59% who say the feature would be very or extremely valuable.
- Eighty-one percent of consumers say embedded offers would influence where they shop, including 49% who say the influence would be high.
- Seventy-seven percent of consumers say real-time savings would influence their default payment choice, a signal that payment-linked offers could become a stronger top-of-wallet tool if they are built into the shopping flow.
That last point is especially relevant for issuers and payment providers. Payment-linked offers are among the least noticed today, with only 10% to 17% of shoppers seeing them depending on the category. Yet consumers say real-time savings could change which card or wallet they use by default. That gap suggests the problem is not lack of interest. It is visibility.
The findings indicate that personalization needs guardrails. Consumers are more comfortable with payment-related automation than with systems that change brands or quantities. Only 37% are highly willing to let a system substitute a different brand to save money, the lowest level among the automation actions tested. That means the most effective systems may start with low-risk help, such as showing the best payment method, applying eligible rewards or surfacing offers tied to preferred brands.
Other findings point to the size of the opportunity. Half of restaurant shoppers, 46% of retail shoppers and 32% of grocery shoppers noticed no offer during their most recent purchase. Only 13% of online offers and 10% of in-store offers applied automatically. The rest required consumers to remember codes, enter loyalty IDs or verify discounts at checkout.
Shoppers are not rejecting offers. They are rejecting friction. The companies that make savings easier to see and use may find that discounts become more than a price cut. They become a reason to choose one merchant, card or wallet over another.
At PYMNTS Intelligence, we work with businesses to uncover insights that fuel intelligent, data-driven discussions on changing customer expectations, a more connected economy and the strategic shifts necessary to achieve outcomes. With rigorous research methodologies and unwavering commitment to objective quality, we offer trusted data to grow your business. As our partner, you’ll have access to our diverse team of PhDs, researchers, data analysts, number crunchers, subject matter veterans and editorial experts.
