2025 Global Digital Shopping Index: the impact of cross-channel shopping

Shopping is becoming increasingly digital as consumers gravitate toward its convenience, whether they're shopping in store or online. This shift is largely being driven by consumers' increasing reliance on their mobile phones.

In the U.K., the retail landscape is quickly shifting in response to these trends. For merchants, focusing on the mobile-first shopping experience has become essential to growth.

• 49% of U.K. consumers made their latest retail purchase—whether online or in-store—using a mobile device.¹
   

This "anywhere storefront" needs a connected shopping experience with key digital features that serve these mobile shoppers and allow them to pay without the pain. Not only do they make a purchase roughly half the time they browse, they're indulging in higher-margin, discretionary spending on products like electronics and hobby items. Merchants that perfect the mobile experience can distinguish themselves from their competitors and win more business from top mobile spenders like parents and high earners.

Despite the popularity of digital experiences, the physical store still plays a considerable role in the shopping journey, with 73% of purchases across the eight countries studied involving physical stores.² But even in store, shopping increasingly means reaching for a phone.

• 38% of the U.K.’s in-store shoppers used a mobile device to support their most recent in-store shopping experience.³
   

Research shows that consumers prefer a unified experience that lets them move easily between online shopping and the physical store for a mobile in-store retail journey; fewer consumers prefer to shop at stores that don't offer digital support. Offering digital features that show price and savings information and product details can be the difference between a sale made and a sale lost.

Given the widespread preference of consumers for robust digital experiences, it's vital that merchants offer digital features that create a cohesive experience.

When customers buy online for in-store pickup, there's an opportunity to drive add-on sales. Across the eight countries studied, nearly half of consumers who ordered their latest purchase online and picked it up in-store said they always or often buy other products at the same time.⁴

98% of merchants in the U.K. that offer a cross-channel shopping experience report facing at least one challenge. For U.K. merchants, the most frequently cited challenges include data management, customer service, and customer engagement.⁵

Third-party providers can help merchants overcome these and other challenges. Visa Acceptance Solutions offers access to capabilities that support seamless omnichannel experiences, including:

• Token Management Service delivers data-driven insights to help create more personalized payment and reward experiences across channels while protecting customers' sensitive information.
• Estimated Authorization allows merchants to authorize an estimated amount before the time of a transaction to secure funds, ease friction at checkout, and drive upsell opportunities.
• Digital Accept provides access to multiple integrations and digital payment methods that help you securely accept payments across channels and devices.
• In-person Accept enables smooth in-person checkout experience with secure, contactless payments on smartphones and point-of-sale devices.
   

To find out more about the latest global trends in digital and in-person shopping, read the full 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index report. And look out for our next blog, which will show you how to connect disjointed payment systems to support unified commerce.