Patterns of purchase loyalty for retail payment methods

While retail payment instruments generate more revenue than many fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) categories, surprisingly little is publicly known about market structure and purchase loyalty. This paper reports a study of shoppers’ use of payment methods in three New Zealand retail categories (n = 310). The study identified shoppers’ “main” and “other” payment methods, and examined relative penetration, patterns of purchase loyalty, and repertoire size. The results showed that well‐known patterns of FMCG purchase loyalty also applied to retail payment methods. These patterns were stable across categories, implying retail payment methods are a mass market rather than a segmented market. The results also showed that, despite New Zealand being one of the most advanced cashless societies in the world, the market for electronic funds transfer at point of sale (EFTPoS) is far from saturated. This knowledge should prove useful for practitioners seeking to understand patterns of competition in retail payment methods, and for academics hoping to apply models of consumer behaviour to financial services.