A PYMNTS survey of 2,754 U.S. adults finds 81% would change where they shop for smart embedded offers. Only 10% of in-store offers apply automatically. The gap is a loyalty risk for merchants and issuers.
A new PYMNTS Intelligence report, produced in collaboration with FIS, estimates that $42.4 billion in recent grocery, retail and restaurant spending is tied to missed or unredeemed offers. That equals 34% of the $125.4 billion in examined spending across those categories. The survey of 2,754 U.S. adult consumers, balanced to the U.S. Census, reveals a structural gap: shoppers are not ignoring discounts because they dislike savings. They are missing them because the current system makes offers hard to see, hard to use or poorly matched to what people planned to buy.
The more important finding may be that consumers are ready for something simpler. 81% of consumers say smart embedded offers could shape where they shop. They want offers to appear earlier, apply automatically and work with the brands and payment methods they already prefer. For merchants, banks, card issuers and consumer brands, that creates a new path to loyalty. The path is less about blasting more promotions and more about removing the work from saving money.
Three numbers from the report show how much behavior could shift:
The gap is not demand. The gap is delivery. Shoppers are rejecting the work of remembering codes or linking accounts, not the savings themselves.
The report tests consumer willingness to let systems automate savings in different ways. The highest willingness – 71% – goes to offers tied to preferred brands. The lowest, 37%, goes to letting a system substitute a different brand entirely. That means the most effective embedded offers will start with low-risk help: showing the best payment method, applying eligible rewards or surfacing offers tied to already-liked brands.
A retailer that embeds offers into the checkout flow – not as a separate step – reduces cart abandonment and increases repeat visits. 46% of retail shoppers saw no offer on their last purchase. If a competing merchant offers automatic, brand-safe savings, the loyalty delta is immediate. The report estimates that $42.4 billion in spending is tied to missed or unredeemed offers. A merchant that captures even a fraction of that by removing friction gains a measurable share of wallet.
Payment-linked offers are among the least noticed today. Only 10% to 17% of shoppers see them depending on category. Yet consumers say real-time savings tied to a specific card or wallet could change which payment method they use by default. That gap suggests a visibility problem, not a demand problem. Issuers that fail to surface offers at the point of sale risk losing default card status to wallets that do.
Issuers and payment providers have the most to gain – and the most to lose – from this shift. Only 10% of in-store offers and 13% of online offers apply automatically today. The rest require manual action: remembering codes, entering loyalty IDs or verifying discounts at checkout. That creates a natural barrier. Even when a card offers a rebate, the shopper often does not see it until after the purchase, if at all.
Legacy issuers that rely on statement credits or mailed promotions risk being bypassed by wallets that surface savings in real time. The problem is not that savings are unavailable. The savings are invisible at the moment of decision. The report shows that only 10% to 17% of shoppers notice payment-linked offers. That means the vast majority of card-linked discounts are wasted.
FIS (Alpha Score 34/100, Weak) collaborated on the report, signaling its interest in payment-linked offer infrastructure. The company operates in the technology sector and provides processing services that could integrate embedded offers. A weak Alpha Score suggests execution risk, the opportunity is measurable: if FIS can help merchants and issuers close the visibility gap, its processing volume could benefit.
BBVA (Alpha Score 68/100, Moderate) is testing embedded banking through channels like ChatGPT. Its score reflects a financial services position with moderate momentum. BBVA's ability to surface offers within conversational banking could turn a novelty into a loyalty driver.
The report frames a shift in consumer behavior. It does not name a single catalyst date. The risk event is real-time loyalty displacement. For FIS, the collaboration signals a product push. Its Weak Alpha Score (34/100) means the stock carries technology sector execution risk. For BBVA, the Moderate Score (68/100) indicates a better risk-reward if embedded banking gains traction. The survey data shows that consumer readiness already exceeds merchant and issuer readiness.
Traders watching this space should track merchant adoption of automatic offer systems and issuer integration with wallets. If a major retailer announces real-time embedded offers tied to a specific payment network, the sector read-through would be immediate: the gap between consumer willingness and current friction is wide enough to move market share.
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.