2023 Voice of the Merchant Study

Oliver Wyman and the Merchant Advisory Group (MAG) jointly sponsored the 2023 “Voice of the Merchant” study. This is a continuation of the 2022 study to examine how leading merchants are transforming their payments ecosystems to meet customers’ evolving shopping expectations.

The study included a survey of 50+ enterprise merchants, followed by targeted interviews. Insights were gathered across many industry verticals including:

  • Quick service restaurants (QSR)
  • Grocery/pharmacy
  • Big box retailers
  • Fuel and c-store
  • Travel
  • Telco/streaming services
  • Clothing and other specialty retailers
 
MAG Merchant Members and Sponsors have access to prior year reports in the MLC.
graphics of a person swiping a credit card, a person washing their hands, a bike delivery person, and a spray bottle

Topics studied:

What type of activities do merchant payments teams spend the most time on?

What are the largest payments-related pain points today?

How are merchants actively managing their form of payment mix?

What are the primary performance metrics used to measure success for the payments and financial services products that organizations offer?

What level of impact do merchants anticipate for forthcoming/potential payments industry developments?

How prepared are merchants to implement/capitalize on these developments that are driven by regulators and card networks?

What is the customer penetration for first-party and third-party shopping channels?

What tokenization technologies are merchants using for their payments data?

How many merchants have or envision having omnichannel tokenization solutions?

How are merchants procuring various operational payment services today?

What qualities are merchants looking for when partnering with an organization for these payments-related services?

How have payments team sizes been changing?

What are the primary reporting structures for payments teams and how do reporting structures influence payments priorities?

2023 VOICE OF THE MERCHANT STUDY
VIEW HERE
2022 VOICE OF THE MERCHANT STUDY
VIEW HERE
The Merchant Advisory Group

Driving positive change and innovation in the payments industry that serves the merchants interest through collaboration, education, and advocacy.