79% of consumers have delayed a purchase waiting for prices to drop, while 77% have spotted price differences for the same product across retailers or platforms
BOSTON, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Akeneo, the Product Experience (PX) leader, today released new PX Pulse survey findings revealing that as economic pressures continue to shape consumer behavior, shoppers are paying closer attention not only to how much products cost, but also to whether the prices they see are fair, consistent, and trustworthy.
Price is becoming increasingly important in purchase decisions, with 59% of consumers saying it matters more than it did six months ago. Yet only 32% completely or mostly trust retailers to offer a fair or competitive price. As a result, shoppers are becoming more deliberate about when they buy, where they compare, and which sources they trust to determine whether a product is worth the price.
“Consumers are paying closer attention to price, and that raises the stakes for retailers,” said Romain Fouache, CEO of Akeneo. “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.”
Economic Pressure is Creating a More Deliberate Shopper
As price takes on greater importance, consumers are becoming more calculated about when they make a purchase. Seventy-nine percent say they have delayed a purchase because they believed the price would be lower later.
That same caution is showing up in how consumers research products before buying. Nearly half (46%) compare prices across multiple retailers when shopping online, while only 9% say they typically purchase without comparing prices.
For retailers, this means the competition for a sale is no longer limited to the product page in front of the shopper. Consumers are actively validating price and value across multiple sources before making a decision.
Pricing Consistency is Becoming a Trust Issue
More aggressive comparison shopping is also making price inconsistencies harder to miss. Seventy-seven percent of consumers say they have noticed the same product listed at different prices across retailers or shopping platforms in the past year.
Consumers are also looking for discrepancies between online and offline channels. Sixty-eight percent say they at least sometimes check a retailer’s website or app while shopping in-store to see whether the same product is available at a lower price online.
That increased scrutiny creates a broader trust challenge. Only 32% of consumers completely or mostly trust retailers to offer a fair or competitive price. Shoppers are particularly wary of pricing practices that feel opaque or overly personalized: 57% say they would trust a retailer less if they learned that the price of a product had changed based on their personal information or shopping behavior.
For retailers, the findings point to a growing need to pair sophisticated pricing strategies with transparency and consistency, particularly as consumers become more active in comparing prices across channels.
AI is Emerging as a New Price-Comparison Channel
AI is also becoming part of how consumers compare prices and assess whether they are getting a good deal. Nearly one-quarter (24%) already use tools such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini to compare prices or deals, while more than half (56%) trust AI tools to provide accurate pricing information when comparing products across retailers.
That behavior is set to continue into the holiday shopping season. Forty percent of consumers expect to compare prices across retailer websites to determine whether they are getting a good deal, while 37% plan to use search engines and 24% expect to turn to AI tools such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini.
For brands and retailers, AI introduces another discovery layer where product information and pricing can influence a purchase. As shoppers move between retailer websites, marketplaces, search engines, physical stores, and AI assistants, inconsistent or incomplete information becomes increasingly visible. When an LLM encounters conflicting prices across those sources, it may struggle to determine which information is most reliable, potentially affecting whether a product is recommended or creating a mismatch between discovery and checkout. Brands need trusted, governed product and pricing data that can travel consistently across every discovery surface.
To learn more about Akeneo or its products, please visit www.akeneo.com. To view the full data and infographic, click here.
Dynata Survey Methodology
The survey was commissioned by Akeneo and conducted by Dynata, the world’s largest first-party data company. The survey was conducted in August 2026 of 1,000 U.S. consumers 18 years and older to understand how economic conditions, evolving pricing practices, and new shopping tools are influencing consumer behavior and purchase decisions.
About Akeneo
Akeneo is the Product Experience (PX) company and global leader in agentic-first Product Cloud solutions, providing the foundational operating system for the AI-powered commerce era.
With its Product Cloud, Akeneo enables brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to centralize, govern, and orchestrate their product information, transforming fragmented data into trusted, actionable assets. With the integration of PricingHUB, Akeneo extends its platform beyond product data to unify product data and pricing — the two signals that drive discovery, conversion, and business performance. Together, Akeneo helps organizations move from managing product information to making better business decisions, aligning what they sell and how they sell it to compete and win in a rapidly evolving, AI-driven market.
Leading global brands, including Chico’s, TaylorMade Golf, Rail Europe, and more, trust Akeneo to scale their commerce initiatives and deliver consistent, high-performing product experiences. For more information: https://www.akeneo.com
Media Contact:
Allison Knight
PAN for Akeneo
akeneo@pancomm.com
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SOURCE Akeneo
