Study: A Third of Gen Z Shoppers Abandon Carts When Their Digital Wallet Isn't Accepted
A PYMNTS Intelligence study reported by Engadget finds 36 percent of Gen Z shoppers abandoned a purchase in the past 30 days because their preferred payment method was unavailable, 1.7 times the rate across all shoppers.
The study put the Gen Z cart-abandonment rate at 36 percent, followed closely by millennials at 31 percent. Together, 40 million consumers in those two age groups walked away from intended purchases in a single month, the study found. Abandonment drops sharply with age: 15 percent for Gen X and 8.3 percent for baby boomers and seniors. With Gen Z spending power expected to reach $12 trillion by 2030, retailers that fail to widen their online payment options risk losing that demographic.
Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay are becoming more common both online and in stores. A study from the payment technology firm Global Payments found digital wallets were used in 40 percent of online purchases in 2025 and 17 percent of in-store spending. PYMNTS found 87 million consumers, or one-third of US shoppers, had used a digital wallet online in the prior 30 days. Gen Z remained the most likely group to do so at 47 percent, ahead of millennials at 44 percent. In the US, $4.1 trillion of total spending is expected to move through digital wallets by 2030, a 64 percent increase from 2025.
Financial pressure shapes how people spend. Among consumers living paycheck to paycheck who struggle to pay bills, 29 percent abandoned a cart when their preferred payment method was missing, nearly three times the 11 percent rate among those who do not live paycheck to paycheck. Gen Z currently has an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent, double the national average, and 42 percent of the generation lives paycheck to paycheck.
Buy Now, Pay Later services tied to online wallets are gaining ground among younger shoppers. PYMNTS found 17.7 million customers abandoned a purchase in the last 30 days because PayPal was unavailable, and 11.1 million of them cited the absence of PayPal Pay Later specifically. PayPal Pay Later was preferred by 20 percent of consumers, against 12.4 percent for Klarna.
Retailers absorb the cost of those gaps. Thirty-three percent of digital wallet users said they would have delayed a purchase, switched merchants or skipped it entirely if their wallet had not been accepted; for Gen Z, nearly half said they would have changed merchants or abandoned the transaction. Twenty-one percent of US consumers had abandoned an online purchase in the 30 days before the survey, 47 percent of whom wanted to use a digital wallet — 26.3 million customers lost.
"Checkout is the last handoff in a relay, and a missing payment option can drop the baton just before the finish," the PYMNTS study said. "Every unsupported payment method is a potential lost sale, and the younger your customer base, the higher the risk."