Something has changed in the relationship between consumers and brands. Spend a little time reading conversations about grocery shopping, restaurants, household products, and everyday purchases, and you’ll quickly spot the frustration. People aren’t simply saying, “Things are expensive.” The more damaging sentiment is closer to: “I don’t believe you anymore.” That distinction should worry brand managers far more than another bad inflation report.
Consumers understand that businesses face higher labor costs, transportation expenses, tariffs, commodities and other pressures. What increasingly irritates them is the feeling that every new economic disruption produces another price increase—but when the disruption passes, prices rarely seem to come back down.
The data suggest that perception has become widespread. A June 2026 survey of 1,075 U.S. consumers found 85% believe brands and retailers sometimes use inflation as an excuse to raise prices more than necessary. Even more troubling for marketers, 67% said higher prices had changed how they felt about brands they once liked, 56% said they had stopped buying from previously preferred brands, and 22% said they trusted those brands less.ConsumerAffairs
That isn’t ordinary price sensitivity. That’s erosion of brand equity.
“I like it. I’m just not paying that anymore.”
That attitude captures much of what is happening in consumer conversations. For decades, CPG companies could charge a premium because consumers believed Tide was better than the detergent sitting beside it, Heinz was worth more than generic ketchup, or their favorite coffee justified an extra dollar or two.
But repeated price increases have encouraged shoppers to conduct an experiment brands probably never wanted them to conduct: “What happens if I buy the cheaper one?”
Increasingly, consumers are discovering the answer is: not much. Ibotta’s 2026 research of more than 5,000 grocery shoppers found 62% now put price ahead of brand name. At the same time, the percentage believing name brands deliver better quality fell from 44% to 38%. Nearly half of shoppers said the price gap between national brands and private label would need to disappear before they would consider switching back. Ibotta, Inc.
That’s an enormous strategic problem. A consumer who reluctantly buys a store brand because money is tight can be won back. A consumer who buys the store brand and discovers it’s just as good may be gone permanently.
Reuters reported this summer that private-label adoption is expanding across income groups, including wealthier households. The old stigma around store brands is fading, so trading down increasingly feels less like a sacrifice and more like smart shopping. Reuters
Then there’s shrinkflation—and consumers really hate it.
Few pricing tactics seem to generate as much irritation as opening a familiar package and realizing there is less product inside.
The 2026 Omnisend research found 59% of consumers regularly notice shrinkflation, while 65% identified groceries as the place where it is most obvious. Nearly three in ten considered shrinkflation the most unfair type of price increase. ConsumerAffairs
The emotional reaction makes sense. Raise a $4.99 product to $5.49 and the consumer can see what happened. Keep it at $4.99 while quietly reducing the contents and some consumers feel the company hoped they wouldn’t notice.
And today’s shopper notices. They photograph packages. They compare old and new sizes. They post receipts. They discuss which products aren’t worth buying anymore. Social media has effectively turned millions of consumers into amateur pricing analysts. A pricing decision made inside a conference room can become a screenshot circulating online hours later.
Consumers aren’t necessarily broke. They’re becoming ruthless about value.
This is another distinction brands shouldn’t miss. People are still spending.
A July ICSC survey found 77% of consumers reported higher monthly spending, but much of that wasn’t because they suddenly felt flush: higher prices and new expenses were major drivers, while only 14% attributed the increase to higher income. ICSC
KPMG found 93% of consumers reported an increased cost of living, while 52% said they were tracking expenses more carefully and 31% had either reduced food spending or struggled to cover groceries. KPMG That produces a consumer standing in an aisle doing calculations that weren’t happening five years ago.
Do I really need this?
Is the generic version basically the same?
Can I wait until it’s on sale?
Is another retailer cheaper?
Why did this suddenly become $7.99?
And perhaps the most dangerous question for an established brand:
“Why am I paying extra for the name?”
Brand loyalty is becoming conditional.
Price used to be one component of the brand equation. Increasingly, it is becoming a gateway.
Bread Financial’s 2026 shopper research found 53% of consumers identify price as their top consideration when deciding which brands or retailers to shop. Nearly a third tried a new retailer in the past year. Bread Financial Newsroom
Another consumer study found 35% of grocery shoppers planned to switch to cheaper brands, while 27% intended to keep buying their brands but move to cheaper retailers. And private label is no longer perceived as dramatically inferior: 68% said store-brand quality was equal to or better than national brands. Alvarez & Marsal Consulting
Put those behaviors together and an uncomfortable picture emerges.
Consumers aren’t abandoning brands because they’ve suddenly stopped liking them.
Higher prices are training them to live without them.
And every time someone discovers that the $3.49 store-brand product works almost as well as the $6.49 national brand, the expensive brand has to earn that customer back.
The biggest pricing risk may not be volume. It’s resentment.
Pricing follows spreadsheet logic. If costs rise 5%, increase price 7%. If volume declines only 2%, margins improve. The quarterly numbers may look terrific. But spreadsheets don’t measure resentment very well.
Consumers remember paying $5 for something that used to cost $3.49. They remember packages getting smaller. They remember restaurants where lunch suddenly costs $20. And they notice when corporate earnings are strong while they’re being told another increase is unavoidable.
That doesn’t mean every increase is unjustified. Businesses genuinely have faced higher input, labor, energy, financing, and supply-chain costs.
But consumer perception becomes economic reality when it changes purchasing behavior.
And mounting evidence suggests it is.
Brands still have a way to charge more.
Consumers aren’t demanding that everything remain cheap forever.
The same research found widespread anger over pricing found consumers willing to accept increases when they can understand the reason. Better product quality, higher employee wages and higher ingredient or material costs were among the explanations consumers found most acceptable. Progressive Grocer
That’s an important distinction. People will pay $7 for something they believe is worth $7. What they’re increasingly unwilling to do is pay $7 for something they remember costing $4.99 without understanding what became $2 better.
That means the next great challenge for marketers isn’t figuring out how much pricing power their brands have. It’s demonstrating why the premium exists.
Because consumers have discovered something during the past several years of inflation: loyalty is optional. And once someone realizes she likes the $3.99 store-brand coffee almost as much as the $8.99 brand she bought for fifteen years, a coupon may not be enough to bring her back.
The danger of continually raising prices isn’t simply losing this week’s sale. It’s teaching your best customers that they never needed your brand in the first place.
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