The CPG Consumer Journey Has Shifted. Has Your Investment Model?
- uzmakrauf
- 2 days ago
- 14 min read
Updated: 19 hours ago
How consumers discover, evaluate, and buy consumer products has shifted – permanently.
Since 2020, the US CPG industry: absorbed a once-in-a-generation pandemic, collective grocery price increases of ~30%, the rapid emergence of retail media as a $60 billion channel, and the mainstreaming of generative AI. (USDA, eMarketer)
Each of these forces independently would demand strategic recalibration.
Together, they've created a consumer who is more digitally fluent, more price-aware, more influenced by peers than by brands, and more willing to switch than at any point in modern CPG history.
True global brand loyalty fell to just 29% in 2025 – a five-point decline year-over-year (SAP)
The rules for growth have changed.
Yet many CPG organizations still plan investments using legacy metrics and spending patterns – misaligned with how decisions are actually formed today across consumer and retailer-controlled ecosystems. The result is lower ROI due to systematic investment misallocation: resources concentrated in familiar channels while high-impact decision moments remain underfunded.
Where Investments Break Down:
Brands over-invest in winning the sale – then go quiet once revenue is captured. That's backwards: 74% of loyalty is built post-purchase (Edelman). Underinvesting here constrains repeat purchase and lifetime value.
Many brands still market to an "average consumer" who doesn't exist. A Gen Z value seeker and a 50-year-old premium buyer follow fundamentally different journeys, making undifferentiated spend inherently inefficient.
Brands assume they control their narrative. They don't. Retailers, influencers, algorithms, and peer reviews increasingly shape visibility and perception before consumers ever encounter brand owned touchpoints.
Most leaders know something isn't working. They diagnose it as a loyalty problem. It's more fundamental – it's a failure to understand how consumers actually decide and invest accordingly.
I’ve seen this gap firsthand. As former head of Shopper Insights at Unilever and VP of Consumer & Shopper Insights at Samsung, I led journey intelligence work that informed go-to-market strategies and supported competitive share gains. The difference wasn’t bigger budgets – it was investment precision – aligning resources to the moments that disproportionately drive choice, retailer performance, and conversion.
In an environment of tighter budgets and sustained margin pressure, precision is no longer optional. Brands need clarity on which touchpoints truly influence growth – and the discipline to deprioritize those that don't.
The brands pulling ahead aren't just optimizing the purchase funnel; they are engineering the entire journey from trigger through advocacy. Those that aren't will experience the negative impact gradually – through share erosion, declining penetration, weaker retailer leverage, and unrealized lifetime value.
Report Contents:
The Journey Framework: A Quick Primer
The Consumer & Shopper Experience Journey (CEJ) maps the full arc of how consumers discover, evaluate, buy, use, and recommend products.
Not every touchpoint matters equally. CEJ's strategic value lies in identifying – for each target consumer – the specific moments that disproportionately shape their choice, confidence, and loyalty – and aligning investment accordingly.
Journeys are rarely linear. Consumers enter, exit, and revisit stages in different ways. But a structured view allows leaders to see what really influences and where investment assumptions may be breaking down.
Modern consumer journey analysis requires examining 7+1 phases:
Shopper Path-to-Purchase:
Purchase Trigger – something prompts entry into the market
Awareness & Perception – early brand impressions form
Consideration & Evaluation – active research kicks in
Decision & Purchase – the moment of truth
Consumer Ownership & Use:
Onboarding – unboxing new product, first use
Use & Satisfaction – ongoing experience with product and brand
Advocacy & Cross-Purchase – recommend, review, return – or defect
+1: The Loyalty Loop – when it’s time to buy again, consumers bypass evaluation and repurchase automatically (due to brand loyalty, or auto-pilot)
Brand loyalty gets built – or lost – at each critical touchpoint.
There is no single "moment of truth" to optimize for. The journey must be orchestrated end-to-end.
Six Forces Reshaping Every Phase
Several forces are reshaping the CPG consumer journey simultaneously.
What matters isn't just recognizing their individual impact, but how they interact – and where they most distort decision-making and investment priorities.
Economic Pressures – Value is paramount and redefined. ~30% cumulative price increases since 2020 have rewired how Americans evaluate brands (USDA). 36% Americans prioritize cost over brand loyalty (SAP) with 76% actively trading down (Bain). Pricing as a growth lever is exhausted. Every branded product now faces a "why not private label?" test.
Consumer Bifurcation – Gen Z discovers on TikTok; Gen X dominates the spend (34% of all CPG (Numerator). Millennials respond to loyalty programs; Boomers want clean labels. One journey map cannot serve all four – and the spending power isn't where the headlines are.
Channel Evolution – Consumers expect seamless digital-to-physical continuity. 86% of CPG sales come from omnichannel shoppers (NielsenIQ). Value channels – Club, Walmart – keep growing while Drug is collapsing (Kantar). Strategies built around yesterday's channel map are misallocating resources today.
Media & Influence – Retail media ($60B+) is now larger than linear TV with retailer websites 50% more effective at driving action than social. UGC delivers 9.8x the purchasing impact of influencer content. TikTok Shop hit $9B in one year. The messenger now matters more than the message. (eMarketer, PubMatic, Nosto)
Brand Dynamics – “Unwavering” brand loyalty globally has fallen to 29%. Private label hit 23.2% unit share in 2025. Small challengers captured all branded share growth. Heritage is not a strategy – relevance must be re-earned continuously through differentiation consumers can actually feel. (SAP, Circana / PLMA )
Technology – 75% of consumers are open to AI product recommendations (Capgemini) but expect human support when it matters. AR/VR tools drive decision confidence. But CPG's critical challenge is infrastructure with 45% of the data marketers use to make business decisions incomplete, inaccurate, or out of date (DemandGen).
How Each Journey Phase Is Changing – And What It Demands
Brands that continue optimizing investment using legacy funnel assumptions risk overfunding visibility while underfunding the moments that actually drive growth.
Purchase Trigger:
What's changed:
Triggers have multiplied and shifted from need-based to influence-based. A TikTok video, a creator's recommendation, or an AI assistant's suggestion now triggers purchase journeys in categories consumers weren’t thinking about. Economic pressure now creates a "double-check moment" where habitual buyers re-enter the journey to question whether their current brand is still worth it. GLP-1 medications, wellness trends, and life-stage shifts are creating entirely new category triggers. And different generations enter through distinct pathways.
What it demands:
Map your category's triggers. Invest in social and creator content that generates triggers, not just responds to them. For habitual categories, monitor the signals that knock buyers off autopilot (price gap widening, private-label quality improvements) and justify the value before the double-check moment happens.
Awareness & Discovery:
What's changed:
Discovery has shifted from brand-controlled (TV, shelf) to algorithm-driven and peer-driven. Social media accounts for over 50% of new product discovery. Google AI Overviews appear in 60% of searches, pushing brands below the fold or out of sight entirely. Retail media networks ($60B+) have made discovery pay-to-play even on retailer platforms. (Capgemini, Xponent21)
What it demands:
Ensure both mental and physical availability to be top of consumers consideration set. Invest in AI and social discovery, not just traditional search and shelf. Fund creator partnerships and retail media as always-on discovery engines. Design for generational differences: Gen Z discovers on TikTok; Gen X discovers in-store and on branded search.
Consideration & Evaluation
What's changed:
Evaluation has intensified across all category modes. Habitual buyers now compare price gaps and private-label alternatives. Considered-category shoppers navigate more touchpoints than ever – reviews, AR try-on, influencer comparisons, ingredient transparency. The K-curve means evaluation criteria have bifurcated: premium shoppers evaluate for quality and experience; value shoppers evaluate ruthlessly on price-per-unit. Trust has shifted from brands to peers – 92% trust peer recommendations over brand messaging (Nielsen).
What it demands:
Arm the evaluator, don't just advertise to them. Provide transparent comparison data (price-per-unit, sourcing, sustainability). Invest in ratings, reviews, and UGC as credibility building infrastructure. For considered categories, deploy AR and diagnostic tools. For habitual categories, make the value story visible at shelf and on screen before the double-check moment.
Decision & Purchase
What's changed:
Channels continue to rapidly evolve. 86% of CPG sales come from omnichannel shoppers (NielsenIQ). Online grocery hit over 60% household penetration (GroceryDive). TikTok Shop went from zero to $9B in 18 months. The drug channel lost 10% of its shopper base. Value channels keep growing. Product availability, online or in-store, is critical to not lose the customer. Depth and credibility of reviews drive confidence in the decision. And conditioned expectations for promotions delay purchase.
What it demands:
Build a channel portfolio strategy matched to your target consumer and their trip missions, not legacy distribution. Reviews must be reliable, and promotions meaningful and visible. Reallocate trade spend from declining channels toward where shoppers are migrating. Partner with retailers to treat availability and product data as conversion infrastructure across every platform where your shopper buys.
Use & Satisfaction
What's changed:
Product satisfaction is the #1 driver of repurchase. Product experience now plays out publicly: unboxing videos, "empties" reviews, ingredient deep-dives, and social callouts of shrinkflation or quality changes. A single negative viral moment can undo years of brand building. GLP-1 adoption, wellness trends, and clean-label demands are now changing how consumers experience products they've bought for years – reshaping satisfaction criteria mid-loyalty-loop. The brands consumers use are increasingly part of their identity, especially for Gen Z and Millennials.
What it demands:
Ensure product quality is unimpeachable – the social cost of poor formulation, shrinkflation and bad customer servicing is now immediate and measurable. Treat every use occasion as a brand moment that will be shared. Design packaging and product experiences that reward attention (QR codes to content, usage guidance, refill systems). For considered categories, provide onboarding that helps consumers get maximum value from the product – reducing regret and building advocacy.
Advocacy & Loyalty Loop
What's changed:
The loyalty loop is breaking. True “unwavering” brand loyalty has fallen to 29% (SAP). 28% of brand loyalists tried a new private-label product in the most recent quarter (foodnavigator). UGC generates 9.8x the purchasing impact of influencer content (PubMatic), making every customer's voice a powerful acquisition or defection signal. Subscriptions and auto-replenishment are the new battleground for habitual categories. For considered categories, community and ongoing engagement determine whether a buyer becomes an advocate or a one-and-done.
What it demands:
Post purchase is where 74% of brand loyalty gets built (Edelman). It must be treated as a strategic investment equal to acquisition – yet most under invest here. For habitual categories, lock in replenishment through subscriptions and loyalty programs. For considered categories, build community-driven advocacy. Across all categories, actively catalyze UGC – every satisfied customer is your most credible acquisition channel. Design loyalty programs for the generation using them: Millennials respond to points and rewards; Gen X responds to recognition and exclusivity.
What Must Be Managed Across Every Phase
While each phase has specific opportunities to manage, two failures cut across every phase of the journey – and getting them wrong undermines everything else.
Different consumers navigate differently.
Many brands don't know who their consumers really are – so they default to the "average" that doesn't exist. But each phase must be designed to deliver on real differences: discovery channels, trust sources, decision factors, and loyalty drivers. One strategy cannot serve all.
Internal silos break the consumer experience.
Go-to-market teams – brand, shopper marketing, sales, e-commerce, service – optimize for their own KPIs. The consumer sees inconsistent messages on TV, social, and in-store. Confusion leads to delay and abandonment. I've seen silos not only across functions, but within them. Winning requires cross-functional alignment around the end-to-end journey.
Not All Journeys Are Equal: Three Modes of CPG Purchasing
Levels of category involvement determines how intensely consumers shop – and a critical mistake is applying one journey model across an entire portfolio.
Habitual. Butter, toilet paper, rice, laundry detergent.
Brand choice was made long ago – purchasing is now autopilot: trigger → repurchase → done. No research, no comparison, no active consideration set
The brand won the consideration battle once and now lives in the loyalty loop
Winning means: mental availability (being the automatic answer when the need arises), physical availability, frictionless replenishment (subscriptions, auto-ship, shelf position), and never giving the consumer a reason to reconsider
The disruption: Habitual buyers are being knocked off autopilot by price increases, social media surfacing alternatives, and private-label quality closing the gap. SKIM Group calls this "the double-check moment" – is this still worth it?
Impulse. The candy bar at checkout, the new flavor on the endcap, the TikTok-viral snack.
Low-consideration by nature – triggered by physical or digital visibility in the moment
No prior intent to purchase; decision made in seconds
Winning means: mental availability (being recognizable enough to trigger desire on sight), shelf placement and packaging that stop the scroll or the cart, and trend responsiveness that puts you in the moment of discovery – in-store and in-feed
The disruption: Impulse purchases are increasingly triggered digitally, not just in-store. TikTok "restock" videos and creator content are generating impulse in categories as mundane as cleaning supplies – well before the shopper enters a store
Considered. Premium skincare, specialty pet food, supplements, premium baby products.
Higher price, higher stakes – the journey resembles consumer electronics more than traditional CPG
Consumers actively research across reviews, influencer content, ingredients, and social proof over days or weeks
Winning means: investing across the full journey – being present at discovery (search, social, AI recos), earning trust during evaluation (reviews, transparency, AR try-on), converting at purchase (availability, price-value clarity), and building advocacy post-purchase through onboarding, community, and experiences that justify the premium
The disruption: Considered journeys are getting longer and more complex as AI search, AR try-on, and peer reviews add touchpoints – but also shorter when a trusted creator's recommendation collapses the entire funnel into a single click
The strategic question: Where does each brand in your portfolio sit today – and where is it drifting? The most dangerous position is assuming your category is still habitual when your consumer has already been disrupted.
Journey Differences: CPG Sub-Industry Nuances
Not all CPG journeys are created equal. While the six forces and phase-level shifts apply broadly, the intensity and shape of each phase varies meaningfully by sub-industry.
A few key distinctions:
Beauty & Personal Care
The most "considered" corner of CPG – and increasingly the most digital. Discovery is overwhelmingly social-first (TikTok, Instagram, creator reviews), and evaluation is ingredient-level, with consumers researching actives, sourcing, and clinical claims. AR try-on is already mainstream for color cosmetics. Brand switching is high and identity-driven, especially among Gen Z. The journey most closely resembles consumer electronics: long evaluation, high post-purchase sharing, and loyalty earned through efficacy, not habit.
Food & Beverage
The highest-frequency, most habitual category – which makes disruption here especially consequential. Triggers are routine-driven (meal planning, restocking) but increasingly influenced by health trends, GLP-1 adoption, and social virality (a single TikTok recipe can spike demand nationally). Evaluation is fast and price-sensitive; purchase frequency means consumers feel cumulative price increases more acutely here than anywhere else in CPG. Channel fragmentation matters most in food – grocery, club, online, convenience, and dollar stores all serve different missions for the same shopper.
Snacks & Confections
The impulse heartland – but impulse is being redefined. Traditional triggers (checkout aisle, vending machine) are being supplemented by digital triggers: creator hauls, trending flavors, limited-edition drops. Discovery and purchase often collapse into a single moment. The challenge is staying visible in an attention economy where shelf placement alone no longer guarantees trial. Brand loyalty is low; flavor innovation and cultural relevance drive repeat more than brand equity.
Household & Cleaning
The most utility-driven category, where the journey is shortest and most habitual. Evaluation criteria are functional (does it work?) and increasingly value-driven (price-per-load, concentrates vs. liquids). Discovery rarely happens through social or creator content – it's shelf-driven, subscription-driven, or prompted by dissatisfaction. The biggest journey shift here is the rise of auto-replenishment and voice reordering, which threaten to remove brand choice from the equation entirely. Winning means being the default in the algorithm, not just on the shelf.
Pet Care
The category that has quietly shifted from habitual to considered – driven by the "pet parent" identity and premiumization. Consumers research pet food ingredients with the same scrutiny they apply to their own nutrition. Evaluation journeys are long, vet-influenced, and review-heavy. Post-purchase loyalty is high once trust is established, but switching triggers are emotional (pet health scare, life-stage change). Mars's expansion from pet food into pet services signals where the journey is heading: from product to ongoing relationship.
Baby & Family Care
High-stakes, research-intensive, and life-stage triggered. New parents enter the category with zero brand loyalty and maximum anxiety – they research extensively, rely heavily on peer recommendations and expert endorsements, and are willing to pay premium for perceived safety. The journey compresses rapidly after the first child as habitual patterns set in, but the initial evaluation window is the most competitive in all of CPG. Subscription and auto-replenishment adoption is among the highest of any category.
OTC Health & Wellness
A category in transition – from pharmacy-guided and habitual to self-directed and considered. The collapse of the drug channel is reshaping where and how consumers discover and purchase these products. Walmart and Amazon are becoming the new "pharmacist," with algorithm-driven recommendations replacing in-store guidance. Supplements and wellness products behave more like beauty (social discovery, ingredient scrutiny, creator influence), while traditional OTC medications remain largely habitual but are losing their historical channel advantage.
The specifics differ by sub-industry, but the strategic question is the same: does your investment model reflect how your consumers actually decide today – or how they decided five years ago?
Five Strategic Imperatives for CPG Leaders
The shifts above aren't theoretical. They demand concrete changes in how CPG organizations allocate resources, structure teams, and measure performance.
Five priorities stand out:
Get clarity on which touchpoints truly drive consumer decisions.
Not all moments equally drive growth. Investing without this clarity means lower ROI by funding legacy placements while decisions happen elsewhere.
Design for distinct consumers – not the statistical "average."
Different segments follow materially different journeys. A strategy built for the composite shopper delivers for no one.
Rebalance investment toward post-purchase and use.
Retention, replenishment, and advocacy are where long-term value compounds – and where most CPG brands are systematically underfunded.
Invest where decisions actually happen.
Retail media networks, creator ecosystems, and AI-driven recommendations shape preference earlier and more powerfully than brand-owned channels.
Fund cross-functional journey ownership
When brand, shopper marketing, sales, and e-commerce optimize separately, consumers feel the friction – and brands pay for it in lost share and lifetime value.
The sequencing matters: start with #1. Without clarity on which touchpoints actually drive decisions, every other investment is a guess.
The Journey Is the Strategy – Is Your Investment Model Aligned?
The forces reshaping CPG aren't temporary. Private label isn't retreating. Retail media isn't optional. Consumers aren't returning to passive brand loyalty. The companies pulling ahead – whether legacy players or challengers – share one thing: they treat the consumer journey as their primary strategic architecture, not a marketing framework bolted onto existing plans.
Most leaders know their journeys have changed. But not all have restructured investment, teams, or measurement to match. That gap between awareness and action is where share is quietly lost – not in a single quarter, but compounding over time. At scale, reallocation isn't a single decision – it's a negotiation across functions, retailer JBPs, and annual planning cycles, which makes diagnostic clarity even more critical.
The brands that outperform won't simply do more – they'll invest with greater precision in the moments that truly drive choice, loyalty, and lifetime value.
If any of this reflects gaps in your current strategy, a Journey Diagnostic conversation with us is a focused way to pressure-test assumptions and identify where reallocation could have the greatest impact.
For CPG leaders wanting to go deeper, we share a detailed executive presentation – with supporting data and diagnostic frameworks – as part of that conversation.
Uzma Khatana Rauf is the founder of Khatanalytics, a marketing intelligence and strategy consultancy specializing in Consumer & Shopper Experience Journey (CEJ) intelligence.
A former VP of Consumer, Shopper & Market Insights at Samsung, Head of Shopper Insights at Unilever, and VP of Custom Analytics at Nielsen, she helps mid-to-large CPG and Consumer Electronics brands develop higher-ROI strategies by knowing precisely where to invest across the full consumer journey.
Comments