Merchant Steering of Consumer Payment Choice: Lessons Learned From Consumer Surveys

Abstract

Recent policy changes in the U.S. allow merchants to influence consumers’ choice of payment instruments by offering price discounts and other incentives. This report describes lessons learned from using consumer survey responses to assess whether merchants tried to influence buyers’ choice of payment method. To measure the effects of these recent policy changes, we included questions about merchant steering in pilot versions of a new diary survey of U.S. consumers. Our findings were inconclusive because some respondents interpreted the questions differently from the way we intended. We improved the questions in the subsequent, full-sample survey in 2012. This paper explains why the initial pilot diary survey failed to deliver the desired results and shows how the revised questions led to better survey responses. We find that the interpretation of a survey depends on the way the questions are asked. Suggestions for further improvements on using surveys to evaluate the effects of policy changes are also included.