Checkout is being rebuilt around mobile, local payment habits, and AI buyers
Checkout behavior is diverging along lines of device, geography, and even buyer type. Across nearly 20,000 B2C businesses on the Stripe network, transaction data from August 2023 through February 2026 shows that mobile now dominates low-value purchases—65% of transactions under $50 happen on phones—and is gaining ground on higher-value ones. Digital wallets cut average mobile checkout time in half, but the preferred wallet varies sharply by region and age group. Meanwhile, AI-assisted buying is pushing checkout to handle a new kind of shopper: the agent.
Big-ticket mobile purchases are becoming the norm
Mobile's share of larger purchases is growing. While the trend is strongest in APAC and EMEA, where mobile is already the default checkout device, the US saw mobile gain share across every purchase size measured in the last two years—including purchases over $500. Canada is the exception: shoppers there still switch to desktop in the $100–$249 range.
Wallet choice is generational and regional
Digital wallets now account for roughly 30% of global point-of-sale volume, and 61% of shoppers in Stripe's global survey said they would use one. Even in card-led markets like the US and Japan, wallets are among the fastest-growing checkout methods.
That growth is not uniform. In the 18–29 age group, 50% of shoppers use wallets for purchases under $25, while 33% use them for purchases over $250. Speed is a major driver: Stripe data shows wallet use cuts average mobile checkout time in half.
The dominant wallet also differs by market, from MB WAY in Portugal to MobilePay in Denmark to Alipay in China. Supporting wallets in general is no longer sufficient; checkout must match the leading wallet mix in each region. In some markets, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link cover most volume. In others, a different combination leads to better conversion.
Global demand doesn't equal global conversion
In a YouGov survey commissioned by Stripe, 45% of respondents made at least one international online purchase in the past year. But that demand only converts when checkout feels local—and the definition of local varies.
In markets like Indonesia and Vietnam, payment preferences are fragmented across digital wallets, bank transfers, debit-linked apps, and other methods. Localization there means adjusting the full experience: method mix, currency, and presentation. In other markets, preferences are concentrated around a single method, and conversion depends on putting that method front and center.
The cost of getting this wrong is measurable. Stripe experiments show that surfacing just one geographically irrelevant payment method can cut conversion by up to 15%. Conversely, supporting the right method has an outsized effect: offering BLIK to customers in Poland increases conversion by 46% on average; offering Pix in Brazil raises it by 31%.
Agents and AI are changing who—and what—checks out
AI is altering checkout from both directions. Consumers are increasingly open to agent-assisted purchases: in a Stripe and Visa survey of more than 3,500 consumers, a majority across markets said they'd let AI agents help with purchasing decisions. Product discovery is already happening inside assistants like Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI's visual shopping tools, and business-specific tools like Stitch Fix Vision and Walmart's Sparky.
On the risk side, automated attacks like card testing are easier to scale, pushing businesses toward tighter controls that can inadvertently reject legitimate customers. Responsive payment models address this by evaluating more signals in real time, requesting authentication selectively, and improving routing and retry logic. Stripe reports that its AI-driven interventions can reduce fraud by 30% without lowering conversion, by cutting false declines and issuer rejections.
The net effect is that checkout is becoming less of a transaction step and more of an identity and authorization checkpoint. It must determine who is buying, confirm that the shopper—or the agent acting on their behalf—is allowed to complete the purchase, and do so quickly enough not to lose the sale.
