Consumers went mobile. Infrastructure hasn’t fully kept pace.

Something significant happened in global commerce — quietly, on people’s phones. It unfolded while consumers were commuting, waiting for coffee, or standing in stores they had already decided to leave.

According to Visa’s 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index, nearly half of all shoppers worldwide used a mobile phone for their most recent retail purchase. One in three consumers browses merchant sites on their phone daily. When they browse, they buy — roughly half the time.

This shift is no longer confined to younger consumers. While Gen Z remains an early adopter, parents are among the most active digital shoppers globally, averaging more than two digital shopping activities per day, according to the index. High-income consumers follow close behind. The customers businesses most want to reach have already moved.

Commerce infrastructure is lagging behind this behavioral shift. Nearly 60% of merchants globally say their payment technology cannot support mobile-first demand. Three quarters believe a unified shopping experience will be critical for customer satisfaction, yet most admit they are not ready to deliver one.

This gap reflects a structural constraint, not a lack of awareness. Mobile‑first commerce exposes the limits of fragmented systems — where acceptance, data, security, and experience are treated as separate functions rather than parts of a single journey.

Closing this gap requires a redesign of how commerce infrastructure operates. That means modernizing acceptance, simplifying cross-channel complexity, and embedding trust at every interaction point.

Visa’s role is evolving alongside this shift. Beyond enabling transactions, Visa is working with banks and merchants to modernize the infrastructure that underpins their operations – enabling commerce to operate at the speed consumers expect, without compromising reliability or trust.

When infrastructure catches up with behavior, growth follows. When it does not, friction becomes a structural cost of doing business.

Walter Lironi, Senior Vice President and Head of Value-Added Services at Visa, Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA)