In today’s competitive market, customer loyalty is more important than ever. With rising acquisition costs and evolving consumer behaviors, businesses need to focus on building lasting relationships with their customers.

From the power of loyalty programs to the growing influence of ethical and personalized marketing, this article compiles essential customer loyalty statistics that will help your brand navigate 2026 and beyond. 

When money moves instantly, loyalty follows. “ From Fast to Sticky: Why Instant Payouts Win Repeat Customers ,” a collaboration between  PYMNTS Intelligence and Ingo Payments, reveals that the first instant payout experience can transform casual users into committed converts, and that eliminating even small fees makes all the difference. Download your copy now.

In this report, learn:

Becoming a habit: Nearly six in 10 recipients who try instant once make it their go-to payout method, with adoption rising to 68% when funds are needed immediately.

For two decades, Amazon.com has been the gold standard for “effortless shopping.” One-click checkout, simple returns, and friction-free buying built a habit that reshaped consumer expectations. The magic wasn’t just about speed — it was certainty. You knew you could return anything. You knew checkout wouldn’t make you second-guess. Amazon has redefined what shoppers expect from every retailer, online or offline. Effortless became the new normal.

The holidays bring a flood of one-time shoppers — and a chance to turn them into long-term customers. Most brands focus on discounts and points, but genuine loyalty comes from connection, not coupons. Here’s how to build relationships that last beyond the holiday rush — using a lesson from an unlikely loyalty experiment.

The postcard experiment that proved people over points

Loyalty grows when your customers feel like you care. Between 2012 and 2014, La Quinta did something most hotel chains would never risk: it let its VP of Loyalty write personal postcards to guests — not to everyone, just to high-value customers or those who seemed ready to drift away.

Why do buyers stick with certain brands? It’s simple: they find ongoing value at a price they are willing to pay. Yet, that’s not how many marketers are continuing to manage their loyalty programs. Instead, they’re stuck in a loop, banking on rewards points and mediocre discounts that customers often forget about. Loyalty programs today are missing the mark, becoming stale and ineffective due to a failure to grasp what truly drives loyalty: a consistently fulfilled brand promise within a unified customer experience that makes it easy to make a purchase or and targeted loyalty benefits that solve a problem.

What’s really critical for businesses to keep in mind is that it has never been truer that a customer’s best experience with any brand anywhere sets the bar for their next experience - including their next experience with you. So, how do we, regardless of industry, meet and exceed those expectations?

This article, inspired by insights shared during a recent webinar, explores that question by addressing three critical aspects of building customer trust and loyalty:

The checkout process is more than an end point to the consumer journey. We digest the data and techniques that reveal how the checkout can be used to drive growth, customer trust and loyalty. The retail landscape is entering a new phase where the checkout experience has become as critical as any other part of the consumer journey. Against this backdrop, checkout-as-a-service (CaaS) is emerging as a significant opportunity rather than just a technical solution.

Amid rising customer expectations for personalization, Walmart, Nordstrom Rack, Five Below and other innovative brands and retailers are creating experiences that adapt in real-time based on where a shopper is, not just who they are. Location is more than a data point — it’s a foundational signal that can be used at every touchpoint and stage of engagement.

From pre-visit engagement through building lifetime value, brands and retailers are boosting traffic, conversions and loyalty with location intelligence. In this retail playbook, learn how to use geolocation to create frictionless customer journeys that drive revenue.