Applause has published findings from its sixth annual Holiday Shopping & Payments Survey, revealing that AI is set to play a larger role in commerce this season. Both consumers and software professionals expect to rely on AI for shopping and selling activities. Shoppers are turning to AI for tasks such as finding deals, getting gift suggestions, and using visual search tools. Interestingly, while most consumers say they would trust an AI agent to shop on their behalf, only about half of software professionals report that their organizations are currently developing such agents.
When it comes to paying for holiday shopping gifts, shoppers demand both quality and flexibility. Nearly two-thirds of respondents would abandon a purchase if they were to encounter an issue during checkout or at any point during the purchasing process. However, the leading cause of cart abandonment is a lack of accepting consumers’ preferred payment methods, with digital wallets emerging as the most popular new payment method this year. Consumers are also fond of the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) option. More than 3,300 consumers and software professionals from around the world participated in the survey.
Key findings:
The majority of consumers are willing to let AI help with their holiday shopping in a variety of ways.
- Despite ongoing quality challenges, 69% would be likely to use AI to support their shopping efforts – with up to 94% who would be willing to try a shopping agent.
- However, only 50% of developers and QA professionals said their organization is developing a shopping/purchasing agent.
- Of the organizations working on agents, 32% said they are handling development in-house, while 18% are joining a partnership, such as OpenAI Instant Checkout or Microsoft’s Copilot Merchant program.
- 60% of consumers plan to use AI to find deals, 56% will use it to get gift recommendations and 53% will leverage the technology for visual searches to find gifts.
Consumers plan to shop both in person and online, spending (and returning) more than last holiday season.
- 92% of respondents plan to shop online this holiday season, with 41% planning to spend more this year.
- Nearly as many respondents (90%) said they would shop for gifts in person, too, with 36% of them planning to spend more than last year. However, about a third (33%) of shoppers are likely to return holiday gifts or purchases, essentially treating returns as a regular part of online shopping. The high cost of returns to retailers has been on the rise year-over-year, and in 2024 was approximately $890 billion. (National Retail Federation, October 2025)
The social media holiday shopping trend is not going away anytime soon.
- 57% of respondents are likely to shop through social media platforms, which increasingly rely on AI to power ads and recommendations.
- The most popular social shopping channels for the season are Instagram (68%), Facebook (63%) and TikTok (53%).
- These findings build on last year’s survey, which indicated that 76% of consumers said their holiday shopping is often or sometimes influenced by social media.
Consumers demand their preferred payment methods and high-quality omnichannel experiences.
- 78% of respondents are likely to abandon a purchase if a website or app doesn’t accept their preferred payment method.
- Of the 40% of respondents who adopted new payment methods, 54% started using digital wallets which continue to rise in popularity.
- 51% of consumers are likely to leave a brand that has a poor omnichannel experience. Favorite omnichannel experiences include BOPIS (78%), delivery lockers (41%) and curbside pickup (41%).
“Good news for retailers — consumers are planning a healthy mix of in-person and online shopping over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend and throughout the holiday season,” said Luke Damian, Chief Growth Officer, Applause. “But, it’s clear the industry needs to adapt to a world where AI is more and more involved in the customer journey. Despite continuing concerns around AI accuracy and bias, people are more than willing to let an AI agent help with their holiday shopping. This reflects the explosive growth potential of AI across markets and increasing quality that is enabling agentic AI to enter the consumer equation. It is crucial for these agents to be rigorously tested to alleviate the risks — that means human-led fine-tuning, red teaming and more.”
Other findings:
Bugs at checkout — and at any point during the purchasing process — continue to plague retailers.
- Consistent with last year’s survey, 62% of consumers will abandon shopping carts after a maximum of two purchase attempts.
- 30% will abandon a purchase if they encounter a bug at checkout, and another 30% will abandon it if they encounter a bug at any point in the process.
- Within the last three months, 39% of respondents encountered an issue with a website or app that impacted their ability to make a payment.
More developers and QA professionals are prioritizing localization — critical to customer retention and loyalty.
- 68% say their company’s websites and apps are available in multiple languages.
- 67% adjust customer journey/checkout flows to align with norms in different countries and cultures.
- Generally, organizations are expanding across borders, with almost a quarter considering themselves global. Most respondents’ organizations (65%) serve up to nine countries and many (35%) serve up to 50.
BNPL continues to be an attractive payment option to consumers.
- 78% of those who have used BNPL in the past say they plan to use it again for holiday shopping this year.
- Yet, only 15% of developers and QA professionals reported that their app offers BNPL.
- PayPal, Klarna and Affirm are preferred BNPL providers. Interest rates and fee structures are the most important factors in choosing a BNPL provider (43%), ahead of repayment timeline (36%) and credit limit (15%).
“Flexibility and quality are essential factors for driving customer retention and loyalty,” Damian continued. “This year’s results show growing interest in convenient payment and omnichannel experiences, including buy now, pay later and a range of pickup and delivery options. These are complex processes that must run smoothly to avoid cart abandonment and customer churn. Functional payment testing and UX testing that take regional payment preferences and other considerations into account will be game changers for retailers competing for holiday shoppers this season.”
Additional insights can be found in today’s related survey blog post. Survey participants included consumers and software professionals, such as developers and QA professionals, from Applause’s independent testing community, as well as social media followers and subscribers to Applause newsletters. The Applause Holiday Shopping & Payments Survey 2025 is an extension of The State of Digital Quality, which analyzes a representative sample of Applause’s testing data and reports on the most common flaws in digital experiences in several industries. Applause was named “e-Commerce Infrastructure Solution of the Year” in the 2025 RetailTech Breakthrough Awards. Our fully managed crowdtesting and UX research services help global retailers deliver high-quality, inclusive digital experiences, address payment processing challenges, and optimize the customer journey from end to end.
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