Shoppers prioritize digital wallets for their ability to reduce friction

The pandemic reshaped consumer expectations about the omnichannel shopping journey, which is now often mediated by a retailer’s mobile app.

Our 2022 US Retail Mobile App Features Benchmark report analyzes the most in-demand retail mobile app features and ranks the top 10 leading multicategory retailers based on their mobile apps.

The ability of the digital wallet to connect the physical and digital realms put this category on top.

Three of the top five overall mobile app features were in this category: redeeming coupons through the app in-store, redeeming loyalty points through the app in-store, and scanning your gift card to your profile.

Optimizing checkout is what most people might think of when it comes to the digital wallet, but the most popular features in this category were geared instead toward saving time and money and reducing friction. Surprisingly, only three retailers offered the ability to scan gift cards.

The ability to complete an in-app purchase using a third-party digital wallet like Apple Pay was No. 10 in the ranking of overall app features; just over half of the retailers we studied offered this feature.

Key Findings:

• Digital wallets are the foundation for mobile apps. They can allow shoppers to save coupons, store credit cards, or enable third-party payment options. These features all have the same end goal—to reduce friction at the most important part of the customer shopping journey: checkout.
• Features that reduce manual tasks by connecting consumers on-and-offline profiles—like loyalty points that can be applied either online or at the store—make shopping easy and convenient. The smoother the experience, the stickier the app becomes, thus driving loyalty.
• Retailers should offer consumers a variety of payment options at checkout—without cluttering the experience—to take advantage of this moment of high purchase intent and lower cart abandonment rates.

Read the full report.