How did Americans Spend During the Pandemic?

In 2020 US consumers each spent $17,095 according to the US census bureau, $2,398 of which was online. CouponFollow surveyed 1,500 Americans in January 2021 about the state of cashless and touchless payment methods during the pandemic.

It appears that, as in other countries, payment behaviour changed, with people trying cashless payments for the first time (41%) and concerns about COVID being important in that decision (49%). Despite that, 62% of Americans stuck to what they know, cash, and continued to carry it at any given time (92%). The vast majority continue to keep cash at home (88%).

As part of their experiments with contactless payments, the move to phone-based payments was significant. 42% started using apps such as Venmo and PayPal and 32% used wallets such as Apple Pay. Men and the Zoom and Millennial generations are leading the charge to adopt phone-based payments. Users do have reservations, with 44% seeing contactless payments as a fraud risk, 30% seeing them as unreliable and 27% finding them too slow. Despite that, 57% believe shops and retailers should accept contactless payments, giving the need to slow the spread of COVID as their reason.