The Survey
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Surveyed
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Total shoppers
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BNPL
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RTO + VLTO
Fielded August 2026 among 2,038 US adults; 476 plan to pay over time this Christmas. The tabs above filter every panel to the group you pick.
Top Categories
Stock These
Budgets
Asked of rent-to-own and lease-to-own shoppers. Monthly equivalents shown in each band.
Holiday Spend vs Last Year
Where Shoppers Pay Over Time
How Shoppers Decide Who to Trust
74%
use an AI assistant to help them shop
ChatGPT is the most used at 39.8%, then Gemini at 27.0%. Only 26% use none. All 2,038 respondents answered.
74%
All surveyed
86%
Payment-plan shoppers
84%
BNPL
92%
RTO + VLTO
Where they discover products
Household Income of Payment-Plan Shoppers
THE QUALIFYING QUESTION
“How do you expect to pay for your holiday shopping this year? Select all that apply.”
Shoppers counted here selected a buy-now-pay-later plan (like Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm, Zip, or PayPal Pay in 4) or rent-to-own / lease-to-own, a weekly or monthly plan where you can own the item (like Acima, Progressive Leasing, Katapult, Rent-A-Center, or Aaron’s). Other options: cash or debit, credit card cleared right away, credit card carried over time, layaway, a personal loan, not sure yet.
Survey of 2,038 US adults on Prolific, fielded August 2026, conducted by WOW Brands research.
Every figure on this page comes from that dataset.