The next retail advantage is hiding in merchants’ payments systems

Payments have always been fundamental to online retail, but today, understanding which payment methods customers prefer and where in the journey they check out plays a direct role in shaping the customer’s experience. Payment data and reporting can reveal where there’s room to improve performance and conversion.

For many merchants, this evaluation may surface an uncomfortable reality: The payments foundation that supported yesterday’s success may be limiting tomorrow’s growth.

As merchants plan for what’s ahead in 2026, many are taking a closer look at whether their current payments foundation can keep pace with evolving customer expectations and the accelerating pace of commerce innovation.

The cost of outdated checkout experiences

Merchants know that delivering personalized and flexible experiences is essential to earning and retaining customers. Yet even as teams refine the broader shopping journey, checkout is often where legacy systems reveal their limits.

Legacy or fragmented payment solutions make it difficult to keep pace, and their limitations become increasingly difficult to ignore. Missing preferred payment methods, inefficient fraud checks or disconnected reporting introduce unnecessary layers of operational complexity and can create friction at the very moment customers are ready to convert.

Adobe’s recent holiday analysis found that 7 in 10 site visits occurred on mobile devices, and buy-now-pay-later orders grew 11% year over year. These shifts underscore the importance of fast, familiar and flexible checkout experiences.

When a merchant’s payment solution can’t support trusted digital wallets, flexible payment options or other modern innovations, the impact is revealed in both conversion and trust. Addressing these limitations often requires reassessing the underlying payments foundation.

How merchants are simplifying payments to unlock growth

A more modern, unified approach to payments helps merchants move beyond the constraints of outdated or fragmented systems. By consolidating where and how payments are activated, managed and optimized, merchants can reduce operational complexity while creating a more flexible foundation for future innovation.

Payment Services is built directly into Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source, streamlining how payments are implemented across the shopper journey and reducing the resource demands typically associated with adding new payment methods.

Beyond simplifying the implementation of current and future payment innovations, a cohesive payments experience can also drive meaningful operational efficiency. When finance, e-commerce and customer experience teams share a single view of payment activity, they spend less time reconciling data and can respond more quickly to issues or opportunities as they arise.

ParkingZone, a parking supply company in the United States, streamlined its workflows after consolidating its payment processes through Payment Services for Magento Open Source.

By shifting to a single dashboard, ParkingZone saves five to six hours each week. The centralized view also improved how transactions are reviewed, making it easier to distinguish legitimate activity from suspicious attempts. Since adopting Payment Services, fraudulent transaction flags have decreased by 47%, which helps protect revenue and creates a smoother experience for the business and its customers.

Nite Ize, a manufacturer of outdoor and mobile accessories, saw similar efficiencies. After implementing Payment Services for Adobe Commerce, the company quickly added digital wallets such as Apple Pay and PayPal to its product pages. Customer response was immediate, showing how readily shoppers adopt familiar payment options when they encounter them within the purchase journey. Nearly 50% of credit card payments shifted to these faster, more convenient options.

“When customers find a Nite Ize product they love, they want to buy it instantly, not fill out forms and enter credit card information,” said Brian Lambert, e-commerce and digital manager at Nite Ize.

Together, these examples illustrate how modernizing payments is about creating a simpler, more resilient payments foundation — one that supports growth today while making it easier to adapt as customer expectations and commerce innovation continue to evolve.

Building resilience and growth into 2026

Merchants that modernize and adopt a unified payments solution gain benefits that extend well beyond the payment methods they offer. Beyond enabling new options at checkout, staying current reduces the long-term cost of operational complexity and builds a foundation that can adapt as commerce evolves.

That adaptability will matter throughout 2026, as competition remains strong and customer expectations continue to rise. Even incremental improvements at checkout can create a measurable impact. Research from Adobe and PYMNTS shows that 97% of merchants with annual revenues under $25 million saw e-commerce sales improve after expanding their payment options. For merchants of all sizes, simplifying how customers pay has become a reliable way to strengthen loyalty and support long-term growth.

Payments may appear at the final step of the shopper journey, but they touch every part of the business. When merchants treat payments as a strategic capability, rather than a background utility, they gain clearer insight, faster decision-making and greater confidence to test and evolve. It’s an approach that positions merchants to enter 2026 with more control, greater resilience and a stronger path to growth across every channel.

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