The “PX Pulse” survey was conducted by first-party data company Dynata in August 2026 among 1,000 US consumers aged 18 and over.
According to the study, only 32% of respondents said they completely or mostly trusted retailers to offer a fair or competitive price, while 59% said price mattered more than it had six months earlier.
The timing of purchases is also changing. Almost four in five respondents, or 79%, said they had postponed a purchase because they believed the price might fall later.
Online comparison is now common, with 46% saying they compare prices across multiple retailers before buying. By contrast, just 9% said they typically make purchases without comparing prices.
Price differences between sales channels are becoming more visible to consumers. Some 77% said they had noticed the same product listed at different prices across retailers or shopping platforms during the past year, while 68% said they at least sometimes check a retailer’s website or app while shopping in-store to see whether the product is cheaper online.
The survey also identified concerns about personalised pricing, with 57% saying they would trust a retailer less if they discovered that a product’s price had changed according to their personal information or shopping behaviour.
Retailers also face new challenges from the growing role of AI in shopping. The survey found that 24% of consumers already use AI-powered tools, such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, to compare prices or deals, and 56% trust these tools to provide accurate pricing when evaluating products across different sellers.
This AI-driven behaviour is expected to continue into the holiday shopping period, with notable proportions of shoppers planning to use retailer websites, search engines and AI assistants for price comparisons.
For the holiday shopping season, 40% expected to compare retailer websites to assess whether they were getting a good deal. Search engines were cited by 37%, while 24% expected to use AI tools such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini.
Akeneo CEO Romain Fouache commented: “Consumers are paying closer attention to price and that raises the stakes for retailers. Pricing can no longer sit in a silo from the rest of the product experience. Consumers, and increasingly AI-powered shopping tools, are constantly comparing products, prices and offers across channels. Brands need trusted product and pricing information working together so shoppers see a consistent, credible experience wherever discovery happens.”
