Flute
Convenience. It’s the cornerstone of every modern innovation. Smartphones give you access to the world from your palm; self-driving cars make traveling effortless; delivery apps let you order food with the touch of a button. Every aspect of our lives revolves around convenience. Which makes it all the more jarring when we encounter a payment experience that obviously wasn’t designed with simplicity in mind.
There’s nothing more frustrating than getting to the front of the line at your local coffee shop or boutique to realize that you left your wallet in the car, and you can’t tap your phone to pay. It may seem like a non-issue at first, but those moments can mean the difference between a customer coming back to your shop or going to a competitor.
In our latest research report, we found that more than 50% of shoppers would reconsider shopping at a place after one bad payment experience. PYMNTS Intelligence also reports that 70% of consumers consider the availability of their preferred payment method very or extremely influential when deciding where to shop.
And that need for convenience goes both ways — to offer the best experience for their customers, business owners need payment solutions that go beyond basic, cookie-cutter features. That means flexible payment options, access to capital, and a dashboard that lets them manage everything from a single login.
To better understand how consumer demands are shaping the landscape and how payment platforms affect an operator’s ability to meet those expectations, we conducted two surveys: one of 1,000 consumers and a second of 210 small-business operators.
Across the respondents, we found that payments influence loyalty, trust, and growth. Consumers expect local businesses to offer the speed, clarity, and flexibility they get from larger chains and online retailers, while operators need payment tools that help them manage sales, cash flow, and day-to-day work without adding more complexity.
Keep reading for a highlight, or download the full report here.
The thing about payment friction is that it rarely makes noise. Unlike a bad product or a rude interaction, a frustrating checkout experience usually ends with a polite smile and a customer who has quietly resolved not to come back.
Data from our survey puts hard numbers to that pattern. Fifty-five percent of consumers said one bad payment experience would make them stop or seriously reconsider shopping at a local business. Another 37% of consumers have already decided not to complete a purchase at a local business because paying felt too inconvenient or confusing — not because of price, not because of the product, but because of how they were asked to pay.
That means the majority of your customers are deciding whether to keep shopping with you based on a single interaction.
Business owners have some sense of this, even when they can’t trace it directly. Thirty-eight percent of operators said their current setup has definitely or probably cost them a customer or sale. What’s harder to account for is the customer who left without a word — the sale that never happened and the loyalty that never had a chance to form.
The good news is that what consumers are looking for isn’t complicated. When asked what would make them more likely to spend at a local business, the answers were consistent:
Speed, transparency, and flexibility. These are the same things large retailers have been building into the checkout experience for years. As consumer expectations are shaped by those interactions, independent businesses are increasingly held to the same standard.
There’s also a gap between how business owners see their checkout experience and how customers actually experience it. Of the operators surveyed, 37% believe they offer a more personalized checkout than large chains. Less than 24% of consumers agreed. In fact, 63% said that checking out at an independent business feels exactly the same as at a chain.
The competitive edge local businesses believe they have at checkout isn’t registering the way they expect it to, and it’s cutting into their margins.
This isn’t just a “today” problem. The data shows clear generational patterns in how consumers respond to checkout friction — patterns that will shape the market for years.
More than half of Gen Z consumers have already abandoned a local purchase because the payment process felt too inconvenient or confusing. That compares with 44% of Millennials, 29% of Gen X, and 22% of Baby Boomers. Younger shoppers have grown up with fast, frictionless transactions as the default, and those expectations don’t soften as they age — they get stronger.
As Gen Z’s spending power grows, so will its influence over the checkout experience. The businesses that get ahead of that expectation now, with faster checkout, flexible payment options, and transparent pricing, are building relationships with a customer base that will define the market for decades.
More is riding on that moment at the counter than most business owners realize. The customer who can pay quickly, easily, and the way they prefer is more likely to come back. On the other hand, the one who hits a confusing or limited checkout usually won’t say anything about it. They’ll just stop coming back.
At the same time, local businesses need payment tools that are simpler, clearer, and faster. They need enterprise-level convenience without the high costs, faster access to funds, clearer pricing, fewer systems, and human support when money gets complicated.
Payments have moved from a back-office consideration to a competitive differentiator, and the growing businesses that treat it like one — by giving customers the speed, flexibility, and pricing clarity they’re already asking for — will be better positioned to build the kind of loyalty that sticks.