A shopper who reaches checkout has already selected what to buy. For tens of millions of consumers, however, the available ways to pay can still determine whether the purchase happens.
PYMNTS Intelligence’s “The Hidden Cost of Checkout Gaps: What 56 Million Abandoned Carts Mean for U.S. Merchants and How Agentic AI is Changing What Comes Next,” produced in collaboration with PayPal, surveyed 2,179 U.S. adults. It found that 21% of consumers abandoned an online cart in the previous 30 days because their preferred payment method wasn’t available.
The findings also show that checkout preferences vary with consumers’ financial circumstances and could carry into agentic commerce.
Here Are 5 things to Know:
- Missing Payment Choice and Cart Abandonment
About 56 million U.S. consumers abandoned an online cart at least once in the previous 30 days because they couldn’t use their preferred payment method.
Consumers had already built their carts and reached the point of payment before leaving, meaning the missing payment method appeared at the end of an otherwise successful shopping journey.
- 19.2 Million Shoppers, BNPL and Abandoned Carts
Digital wallets aren’t the only payment option with a measurable effect on completed sales.
Thirty-two percent of consumers who abandoned carts because of an unavailable payment method wanted to use buy now, pay later (BNPL), representing 19.2 million U.S. shoppers. PayPal Pay Later alone was the unavailable method that accounted for 11.1 million abandoned purchases.
Cards, by comparison, accounted for 38.2% of missing-method abandonment, split almost evenly between debit and credit. The data show that installment availability has become a material part of the checkout mix alongside traditional card acceptance.
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- Financial Pressure Changes the Cost of a Checkout Gap
Payment acceptance carries different consequences depending on the shopper’s financial situation.
Twenty-nine percent of consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills abandoned a cart because their preferred payment method wasn’t available. The share fell to 23% among paycheck-to-paycheck consumers without problems paying bills and 11% among consumers who don’t live paycheck to paycheck.
For merchants, the difference suggests payment choice also serves consumers who have less room to substitute one source of funds for another when they reach checkout.
- Wallet Users Are More Ready to Hand Purchases to AI
Forty-three percent of U.S. consumers, representing roughly 113 million people, say they would likely link a digital wallet to an artificial intelligence agent for purchases within the next two years.
Existing wallet users are further ahead: 52% of consumers who recently paid online with a digital wallet say they would likely connect one to an agent, compared with 39% of non-wallet users. Millennials lead at 55%, while 46% of Gen X consumers also say they are ready to link a wallet to an AI agent.
The figures connect current payment behavior with potential adoption of AI agent-initiated purchasing across more than one generation.
- Consumers Want Rules Around What an AI Agent Can Buy
Willingness to delegate a purchase doesn’t mean giving an AI agent unrestricted access to a wallet.
Forty-one percent of consumers say approval and visibility features would make them willing to link a digital wallet to an artificial intelligence agent. The controls include requiring approval before purchases and receiving transaction notifications. About 31% want spending limits, while consumers also expressed interest in restricting purchase categories, preventing recurring subscriptions and choosing which payment methods an agent can use.
Agentic checkout adds another dimension to payment acceptance: merchants and their payment partners may need to support the permissions attached to a consumer’s credential along with the credential itself.
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