The Maze: US shoppers place more weight on low prices than retail marketers expect. A survey commissioned by marketing technology companies Wunderkind and Cordial exposes that mismatch. It offers a reason to question investment assumptions, with a crucial limit: reported preferences do not establish what increases actual sales.
Source: Wunderkind and Cordial via Cordial. Consumer purchase priorities in the US survey; the base is 1,000 consumers.
The Details:
Price is the clearest disagreement. In The Customer Marketing Gap, 56% of consumers named the lowest price as a leading consideration when choosing where to buy online. The detailed report puts marketers' estimate at 24%, a 32 percentage point difference. The press release and selected coverage round that figure to a quarter. The comparison concerns marketers' beliefs about shoppers, rather than marketers' own shopping preferences. A similar pattern appears in messages: discounts helped attract attention for 50% of consumers, versus 26% of marketers expecting them to matter. Neither result measures whether an offer generated an additional order or preserved profit after the discount.
Convenience and sales are different questions. Saved carts and faster checkout each made shopping easier for 48% of consumers. A saved cart remembers selected goods so someone can return without rebuilding the order. Relevant product recommendations were useful to 32% of consumers, while 61% of marketers believed recommendations had a major effect on conversion: turning a visit into an order. Those answers concern different outcomes. The company release also contrasts 59% of marketers expecting artificial intelligence to have the biggest marketing impact over three years with 16% of consumers saying it improves shopping today. Future expectations and current perceptions cannot establish that the technology succeeds or fails.
The sample defines the claim's reach. The report methodology covers 1,000 US consumers and 150 US-based senior marketers. Data collection finished in August 2026; the release followed on October 13, before October 19 coverage. These are two separate respondent groups, not a controlled shopping experiment. Wunderkind helps brands identify and market to customers. Cordial provides customer messaging tools across email, text and mobile. Both sell services connected to the report's recommendations. Their commercial interest deserves attention alongside the findings; it does not, by itself, disprove the responses.
MarketMaze Take:
The useful challenge is to how retailers define success. A shopper can appreciate an easier visit without buying, while an effective tool can work without the shopper noticing its technology. This research exposes assumptions worth testing. It does not supply a ranking of investments by financial return.
Test the obstacle before choosing the tool. The price and discount answers suggest checking whether customers understand the offer and what they must pay. The convenience answers suggest checking what prevents them from completing an order. Compare completed purchases and profit after promotional costs. The survey supplies hypotheses for those tests, rather than evidence that blanket discounting or abandoning recommendations will pay.
Carry the question abroad, not the percentages. Retailers outside the US can ask whether their own measures capture shopper benefit or simply technology adoption. Local customer research and purchase results must answer that question. The strongest objection remains straightforward: what people say they value may differ from what changes their behavior.
Sources: Sourcing Journal · Cordial release · Report and methodology · Vendor partnership
