3 in 4 Brits Don’t Use Smartphones to Check Prices, Inventory In-Store

The unofficial FinTech capital of Europe, Britain is still lagging when it comes to important aspects of the digital shift like mobile-assisted shopping and digital payments.

In The U.K. edition of the 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook, a PYMNTS and Cybersource collaboration, part of a larger survey of 3,100 businesses and over 13,000 consumers across six countries, we find that U.K. merchants are lacking many of the digital features that make omnichannel shopping a delightful experience as opposed to the same old thing.

For example, PYMNTS data shows that mobile wallet usage “has remained low in the U.K., however, with just 5% of local consumers paying for their most recent purchase with a mobile wallet and a slim 1% doing so via PayPal.”

Additionally, “just 24% of British consumers — approximately 3.7 million people — use their smartphones this way, comparing prices in real time, checking inventory statuses, searching for product reviews or otherwise. Across all six countries in our study, 34% of consumers use their smartphones to augment in-store shopping.”

Get Your Copy: The U.K. edition of the 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook

A lack of digital and cross-channel shopping features “adds unnecessary friction to U.K. consumers’ shopping experiences and potentially deters would-be customers. U.K. merchants earn an average Index score of 89.4 points, meaning that U.K. consumers face 11% more shopping friction than our sample average. The only countries where consumers encounter more shopping friction are Australia and Mexico, whose merchants earn average Index scores of 81.1 and 83.0, respectively,” per the U.K. edition.

One area where U.K. shoppers are tracking with other digital-forward nations studied is a penchant for direct delivery of eCommerce purchases. The study states that “among all the consumers in our study, those in the U.K. show the strongest preference for having their eCommerce orders shipped directly to their homes,” with 78% of U.K. eCommerce shoppers having purchases sent straight to their homes in 2021, versus 71% across all six countries.

As the Strong Consumer Authentication (SCA) mandate is in force, and with other lags considered, we found that “consumers in the U.K. deal with some of the more friction-laden shopping experiences in our study, but local merchants have a tremendous opportunity to change that. Merchants that have adopted the integrated shopping features customers want most have demonstrably boosted their chances for conversion.”

See It Now: The U.K. edition of the 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook