Why Has Discount Culture Become a Daily Default Instead of a Seasonal Event?
Discount-hunting used to spike around Black Friday or a retailer's app-only flash sale, then fade. That pattern is gone. Discount culture is now a daily default: shoppers treat searching for a code, comparing a unit price, or checking cash-back apps as a routine step in nearly every purchase, online or in-store. For commerce teams, that shift changes what a promotions engine, a loyalty program and a checkout flow each need to do.
Discount-seeking has become routine because value, not price alone, now determines whether a purchase happens at all. Consumers still need a product to be affordable to consider it, but 67% say they won't buy something they can afford if it doesn't feel worth the money, and that judgment is made on nearly every purchase, not just big-ticket ones [4].
That judgment is reinforced by economics. In North America, grocery sales grew 1.2% in 2025, but that was entirely a price story: prices rose 2.2% while volume actually fell 1.0% [1].
Consumers aren't rejecting savings; they're rejecting the unpredictability of a system built on sporadic markdowns. That's why 71% now prefer steady, everyday low pricing over a cycle of deep discounts stacked on inflated base prices [1].
- More than half of shoppers say they've cut impulse purchases.
- 43% say they now compare prices more carefully than a year ago [1].
How Far Does the Shift Go Beyond Price-Checking?
It extends into brand choice, channel choice and even how shoppers plan a trip. Deal-seeking is no longer confined to bargain hunters, it has become the default entry point for trying anything new. The table below lines up the behaviors retailers are now contending with.
The pattern that jumps out: online and in-store deal-seeking now overlap heavily in the same shopper. Someone who redeems a digital coupon is also likely to respond to an in-store markdown or a sampling table, which means a promotions strategy confined to one channel is missing more than half the behavior it's trying to influence [2].
| Behavior | Share of shoppers | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Enter a store with only a loose plan or no plan | 32%, up from 25% in 2023 | Ibotta / EMARKETER [2] |
| Bought a new brand/product because of a discount or cash-back offer | 68% | Ibotta / EMARKETER [2] |
| Used digital discounts or cash-back in the last month | 64% | Ibotta / EMARKETER [2] |
| Used in-store sales in the last month | 60% | Ibotta / EMARKETER [2] |
| Tried a new product after an in-store sample or demo | 58% | Ibotta / EMARKETER [2] |
| Prefer consistent everyday pricing over frequent promotions | 71% | McKinsey [1] |
Is Loyalty Losing the Fight to Price?
Not entirely, but loyalty programs no longer carry the weight they once did against a well-timed discount. Store loyalty cards swayed only 39% of shoppers, a smaller share than the 68% who switched to a new brand for a discount or cash-back offer [2].
Price sensitivity has also started eroding brand preference itself: the share of shoppers who agree that brand names are better than store brands fell from 44% in 2024 to 38% in 2025 [2].
Private label is capturing that shift. It grew roughly three times faster than national brands last year, and grocers expect the momentum to continue: nearly a third of consumers plan to buy more store brands in the next year, and 85% now say private label matches or exceeds national brand quality [1].
Retailers are responding by rebuilding promotions as a data system rather than a promotional calendar: 35% of grocers' promotions are fully personalized today, and they expect that to reach 55% within two to three years [1].
Cash-back offers are proving powerful enough to override brand loyalty in the other direction too. 55% of food shoppers say a cash-back offer justifies paying for a premium brand they'd otherwise skip, meaning the same discount mechanic that erodes brand loyalty on one purchase can rebuild it on the next [2].
Where Does AI Fit Into the Discount Decision?
AI has moved from a personalization add-on to an active participant in whether a discount lands at all. Nearly a third of consumers globally already use AI at least occasionally when making purchase decisions, and among the 19% who rely on it regularly, 70% end up buying whatever it recommends [4].
“Consumers ultimately buy based on value, which they determine on the basis of factors that go well beyond price.”
AI-assisted shopping also expands, rather than narrows, the brands a consumer considers: it introduces shoppers to brands they wouldn't have otherwise found in roughly 63% of AI-assisted journeys [4].
That has direct consequences for how a discount gets discovered. In physical retail, 43.2% of US mobile shopping app buyers already use a brand or retailer's app in-store specifically to pull up discounts, coupons or promotions [3].
Investment is following that behavior: US in-store retail media ad spending is projected to climb 33.1% in 2026 as retailers build the infrastructure to put personalized offers in front of shoppers at the exact moment they're deciding [3].
What Should Commerce Leaders Change in Response?
The practical response isn't to discount more, it's to make value legible at the moment of decision, across whichever channel a shopper happens to be using. Three shifts stand out from the data:
Retailers that treat these as one coordinated pricing, loyalty and data problem are the ones McKinsey expects to pull ahead as promotions shift from a seasonal calendar to a year-round, personalized system [1].
- 1Treat pricing and promotions as one connected system, not separate levers. Grocers moving toward fully personalized promotions, up from 35% to an expected 55% within three years, are doing this because a flat percentage-off code no longer differentiates against a shopper comparing five tabs at once [1].
- 2Build cash-back and loyalty mechanics that work together rather than against each other. A loyalty card alone swayed fewer shoppers than a one-time discount did, but a cash-back offer was strong enough to justify a premium purchase for 55% of food shoppers [2].
- 3Assume AI is already part of the purchase path. With AI-assisted journeys introducing new brands to shoppers 63% of the time, product and offer data need to be structured so an AI assistant can represent a promotion accurately, not just show it on a banner [4].
Sources
- [1]McKinsey & Company, The State of Grocery North America 2026 — mckinsey.com
- [2]EMARKETER, Deal-hungry grocery shoppers swing behavior to digital discounts and in-store inspiration — emarketer.com
- [3]EMARKETER, In-store experience becomes retail's pressure valve in 2026 — emarketer.com
- [4]BCG, Global Consumers Have Moved On. Has Your Growth Strategy Caught Up? — bcg.com
