Bread Financial
Research Library
Research Library
At Bread Financial we are dedicated to keeping a pulse on consumer, industry and macro-economic trends. Our dedicated researchers and thought leaders gather insights and conduct proprietary research studies across multiple topics throughout the year and then cleanly package key learnings into easy reference guides for our partners.
Bread Financial Insights & Proprietary
Research Studies
Research Studies
Explore our latest wave of insights and proprietary research studies available for download below.
pay over time content
The boundaries have blurred for physical store and digital channels. Shoppers don’t see a retailer’s physical store and its website as two different entities — it’s one experience with that retailer.
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To help us better understand what motivates consumers to choose buy now, pay later over other payment types, we conducted a survey of 1,077 Bread Pay users.
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Customers expect choice. They’ve evolved past the basic desires for retailers to accept cash and cards. In fact, the average customer will use multiple payment and financing types when shopping their favorite retailer.
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consumer insights
From a consumer perspective, the jury is still out on the value of AI in retail – brands and merchants will have a lot to prove: 59% say they feel unsure or neutral about the impact AI will have on the ways they shop.
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Our Holiday Hindsight report details key retail and consumer trends we saw over the course of the 2024 holiday shopping season as well as a forward look at and implications for 2025.
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Three out of four shoppers (77%) believe companies have a responsibility to ‘do the right thing’ when it comes to issues regarding the environment and social responsibility. However, with macro influences continuing to test shoppers’ spending mettle, shoppers are increasingly preferring to support these efforts from the sidelines.
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Consumers are ready for Spring Break – and especially Gen Z. With warmer weather on the horizon, many consumers are getting ready to travel this spring.
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Our Holiday 2024 Midseason report details key retail and consumer trends we are seeing midway through the season – as well as predictions for what could come in the final shopping days in December.
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Developed with the intent of getting a preliminary read on consumers' spending and shopping plans for the 2024 holiday season.
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annual research reports
The 2024/2025 iteration of our an annual report, The State of the American Shopper, now in its third edition, highlights how consumers are evolving over time, and how that looks different by generation.
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This report seeks to uncover what makes the American Middle-Class consumer unique - their mindset, their aspirations and their unmet needs.
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In the 2024 mid-year update to our annual report, The State of the American Shopper, we found inflation to still be the top concern for consumers.
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Prolonged inflation has taken a toll on consumers, reducing their purchasing power and taking a bite out of their wallets. In response, consumers are changing their behaviors: making tradeoffs, challenging their wants vs. their needs and increasingly looking for good deals.
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In our inaugural report, The State of the American Shopper (2023), we explored new modern baselines to help us understand the needs, expectations and behaviors for the average American shopper. Six months later, we can see how consumers are evolving.
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This report creates a modern baseline for today’s shopper in our post-COVID world, including what the new “average” shopper looks like and how their outlook and behaviors change by life stage.
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