London, October 27, 2026 / PRNewswire / -- As retailers prepare for Black Friday, research from the offline payment orchestration platform Aevi shows that 53% of American consumers stated they would refuse to shop if stores did not accept their preferred payment methods; in some key consumer groups, this proportion rises to around 60%.

A survey of over 2,000 American consumers by Aevi reveals:

• 85% of American shoppers hope that offline payments are as convenient as online payments, but the checkout infrastructure seems to struggle to keep up with the demand.
• 36% of American shoppers gave up in-store purchases in the past year due to payment issues, with 10% of those occurrences happening in the last month.
• 44% of people stated that after experiencing slow or failed payments, their likelihood of returning to use that service again would decrease.

Among the most common complaints mentioned by Americans, waiting in line ranks first, accounting for 42%. Young consumers are most affected; 33% of those aged 18 to 24 list payment failures as a major annoyance, while this proportion is 10% among those over 65 years old.

Hundreds of shoppers also described a poor payment experience. One American respondent wrote, “I felt embarrassed when my payment was declined due to a problem with the store’s system. Another time, I had to give up shopping because I couldn’t use the ‘tap-to-pay’ function and I didn’t have a wallet on me.”

Data shows that consumers' expectations are exceeding the capabilities of store payment infrastructure. Adding a new payment method online may only take a few days; however, offline, authentication, software updates, and promotion across various stores can take several months.

Aevi CEO Mike Camerling stated: "Black Friday is the weekend that American retailers can least afford to experience checkout failures. More than a third of American shoppers have left stores due to payment issues, and many of them will not return. Retailers who are able to add payment methods or switch service providers without having to rebuild each store will be able to retain customers lost to their competitors."

The white paper of Aevi, titled " The real cost of a checkout that doesn 't work", explores the shopping experience of offline payments and asks payment experts what retailers need to do to address these issues.