Visa: Mobile-First Shoppers Are Reshaping Merchant Strategy

Watch more: Merchants Use Visa’s Unified Commerce to Convert In-Store Buyers

Unified commerce represents the next evolution in the digital economy, aiming to dissolve persistent friction points that even advanced omnichannel strategies have yet to fully address.

Moving beyond merely streamlining transactions across different channels, this model seeks a channel-agnostic experience that integrates loyalty programs, stored payment credentials, and promotions directly into the customer journey.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Visa’s Matt Swatzell, head of solutions, North America Acceptance, said the foundation for building this experience lies in understanding the modern consumer, whose interactions and expectations are shaped by living in a mobile-first world.

According to the “2025 Global Digital Shopping Index,” drawn from a survey of over 18,000 consumers and nearly 3,500 merchants across eight countries, 60% of consumers browse merchant sites on their phone multiple times a week, converting nearly half of those browsing sessions into sales.

Smartphones now touch nearly half of all retail purchases, underscoring the central role mobile plays in the shopping process. Merchants, therefore, must treat this always-on audience as the bedrock of their channel strategy.

“If you go back 20 years or so, there’s emergence of digital payment acceptance, and … you’ve seen more and more merchants adopt what we call omnichannel experience,” Swatzell said. “This is where you’ve enabled things like buy online, pay in-store or buy online, return in-store and buy online, ship to store.”

However, despite the surge in mobile engagement, physical locations still figure in consumer behavior, accounting for 73% of all purchases.

“We see that over half of the customers that are using mobile sales, and the click-and-mortar model actually are using it in store, at the location, to help make a payment decision,” Swatzell said.

In other words, the store still sells.

While this presents a risk due to in-store price comparison, it also offers “a tremendous opportunity, as well, because you have a captive consumer, looking at your product, wondering what comes next,” Swatzell said.

To effectively capture and convert these consumers, especially the captive audience using mobile devices within physical stores, merchants must adopt a multifaceted approach. Swatzell outlined key strategies, starting with the fundamental need to “be easy to do business with,” particularly for the mobile-first shopper.

This requires experiences tailored to the small screen, including well-designed, mobile-first websites or applications. Much of the friction on mobile remains the need for customers to type in payment credentials. Merchants should use stored payment credentials where possible, as this experience is “far less friction-filled,” he said.

Another element is “meeting the customer where they’re at and making sure that you’re approaching them and taking this buying experience and making that the right buying experience so that every time you visit that site, you actually convert that to a deal,” he said.

This involves understanding customer intent and providing relevant offers or nudges at the right moment. An example is the use of time-based reminders, such as reminding a parent who previously added breakfast items to a cart — but forgot to hit submit — to complete the purchase the following morning. This reminder transforms a potentially abandoned cart into a quick checkout experience.

Merchants must also not forget the click-and-mortar journey itself, which includes easily moving between online and in-store experiences. Consumers are highly likely to spend more in this setting. For instance, when customers opt to buy online and pay in-store, there is a 43% chance they will pick up more items. Merchants should encourage in-store visits through their mobile interactions, perhaps offering a prompt along the lines of, “Do you want this today? Come shop, pick up here,” he said.

Combining these strategies — ease of use, meeting customers with relevant offers and reminders, and integrating the physical store experience — allows merchants to convert more shoppers into purchasers, Swatzell said.

Personalization is a key consumer demand. Customers desire rewards, coupons and simple navigation. Providing the “right loyalty, the right rewards, the right benefits” is a core component of adapting the experience and making low-intent customers higher-intent, he said. This can range from traditional discount programs to loyalty programs that anticipate customer needs.

In hospitality and restaurant settings, personalization could involve reminding a customer of a spa package they enjoyed on a previous visit or suggesting complementary items based on past purchases, Swatzell said. Implementing effective personalization hinges on having the unified commerce capability to understand individual customers and their payments history.

Customers’ desires extend to loyalty programs and conveniences like free shipping. However, merchants must carefully balance these offerings with profitability. Offering free shipping, for example, can shrink profit margins. In contrast, rewards and promotions often have less impact on the bottom line. Therefore, prioritizing the right loyalty, rewards and benefits programs should be considered a strategic investment after payment processing issues are addressed. These programs are part of meeting customers where they are and adapting the experience to drive conversions.

Enhancing the customer experience and powering frictionless transactions also requires robust security measures that don’t introduce friction. Tokenization and biometrics are powerful capabilities, Swatzell said. Tokenization is among the best methods for storing payment credentials. It reduces the merchant’s compliance burden, allows customers to use stored credentials, and improves authorization rates.

Network-enabled tokens offer an added advantage by automatically updating if the underlying card credential expires, ensuring the token remains active without requiring the customer to re-enter details. This creates a rare scenario where merchants see improved acceptance rates, less customer friction and reduced fraud because the token is provisioned by the network and issuer.

The increased reliance on stored credentials by consumers (45% according to the report) and enterprise clients (where 80% of purchases are with stored credentials) directly contributes to increased sales.

As payment trends accelerate and consumer behaviors shift toward greater comfort with digital identity and seamless transactions, merchants who proactively invest in capabilities like tokenization, biometrics, personalization and integrated loyalty programs are better positioned to deliver the unified commerce experience the modern shopper demands.

“The opportunities it presents for merchants — and for Visa — are tremendous,” Swatzell said.

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