Merchant Study

Education Merchant Study

2026 Voice of the Merchant Study

2026 Voice of the Merchant Study cover photo


Oliver Wyman and the Merchant Advisory Group (MAG) jointly sponsored the 2026 “Voice of the Merchant” study. This is the newest report in the series to examine how leading merchants are transforming their payments ecosystems to meet customers’ evolving shopping expectations.

      2026 VOICE OF THE MERCHANT STUDY
      VIEW HERE


      Verticals Studied:

      The study included a survey of 40+ enterprise merchants, followed by targeted interviews. Insights were gathered across many industry verticals including:

      • • Big box retailers
      • • Clothing and other specialty retailers
      • • Fuel and c-store
      • • Grocery / pharmacy
      • • Quick service restaurants (QSR)
      • • Telco / streaming services
      • • Travel


      Topics Studied:

      Team focus areas

      • • How has your payments team size been changing?
      • • What does your team spend its time on?

      Prioritized payment methods

      • • Which consumer payments / services do you support?
      • • How is your demand for alternative payment methods evolving?

      Optimizing the payments technology stack

      • • What payments-adjacent products / services do you utilize?
      • • Are they bought or built? How has that changed over time?

      AI

      • • How does your team use quantitative and GenAI internally?
      • • Where have you found value in AI in your day-to-day?

      Merchant positioning for agentic commerce

      • • How are you positioning to participate in agentic commerce?
      • • How should AI shopping agents interact with your business?

      Stablecoin acceptance and implementation timing

      • • What is your outlook on stablecoin usage?
      • • How do you evaluate stablecoin use cases?

      Past Studies

       MAG Merchant Members and Sponsors have access to prior year reports in the MLC.
      2024 VOICE OF THE MERCHANT STUDY
      VIEW HERE
      2023 VOICE OF THE MERCHANT STUDY
      VIEW HERE
      2022 VOICE OF THE MERCHANT STUDY
      VIEW HERE

      JOIN THE MAG
      AS A MEMBER OR SPONSOR

      If you are a Merchant or Sponsor interested in joining, complete the form and we will contact you.

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      The Merchant Advisory Group

      Driving positive change and innovation in the payments industry serving merchants' interests globally through collaboration, education, and advocacy.