Research institute · Capgemini Research Institute
Price and Conversion 2026: 74% of Shoppers Switch Brands for a Lower Price
Capgemini Research Institute's What matters to today's consumer 2026 (surveying 12,000 consumers across 12 countries including the UK in October 2025) finds that 74% of shoppers will switch brands when a competitor offers a lower regular price, and 75% rate straight money-off deals the most effective conversion-driving promotion.
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Key findings at a glance
- 74% Consumers who will switch brands if a competitor offers a lower regular price - the single biggest driver of brand switching in the survey
- 75% Consumers who rate money-off deals (e.g. £5 off £25) the most effective promotion in driving their purchase decisions
- 74% Consumers who rate percentage-off promotions (e.g. 20% off) as effective at driving purchase decisions
- 73% Consumers who rate buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOF) as an effective conversion-driving promotion
- 66% Consumers who would prefer a clear, signalled price increase over non-signalled shrinkflation
- 64% Consumers who view shrinkflation (smaller pack size at the same price) as an unfair pricing practice
- 62% Consumers who will switch brands if a competitor runs a better promotion - the fourth-largest switching driver
- 49% Consumers who have responded to price rises by buying smaller quantities of their usual product
- 48% Consumers who have swapped to cheaper alternatives (e.g. tinned fruit instead of fresh) to manage their budget
- 12,000 Consumers aged 18+ surveyed across 12 countries (UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Netherlands, Australia, India, Japan) in October 2025
What the report covers
Capgemini Research Institute publishes What matters to today's consumer annually; the 2026 edition is the fifth in the series and draws on an online survey of 12,000 consumers aged 18 and over across 12 countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States). Fieldwork ran in October 2025, with the report released in January 2026.
The headline finding for UK ecommerce operators: when value-seeking behaviour intensifies, the price signal is the most powerful single conversion lever in the survey. Capgemini asked respondents what would cause them to switch brands, and lower regular prices (74%) sits ahead of every other reason, including a current brand reducing pack size or quality (71%), competitors offering a better loyalty programme (65%), competitors running a better promotion (62%), bundle value (61%), better overall experience (61%) and consumer reviews (61%).
For categories where price drives conversion most strongly - fresh produce, dry groceries, household necessities, stationery and apparel - the survey shows shoppers actively comparing prices across platforms before committing. Capgemini also tracks how shoppers respond to those signals: 75% of consumers rank straight money-off deals as the most effective promotional mechanic, ahead of percentage off (74%) and buy-one-get-one-free (73%). Personalised coupons (62%), multi-buy offers (55%) and free shipping (46%) all rank lower because they introduce cognitive friction or delay.
The data also surfaces a clear hierarchy of perceived fairness in pricing practices. Volume-based discounts are seen as fair by 80% of consumers and personalised loyalty coupons by 70%, while charging higher prices on a mobile app vs the website (-51%), charging different prices online vs in-store (-45%) and shrinkflation (-64%) all carry strongly negative fairness scores. Two in three consumers say they trust ecommerce players to give them a fair price - a baseline that conversion-minded operators can build on or quickly damage.
What this means for UK marketers
For UK ecommerce and PPC operators running price-led campaigns, the Capgemini data settles the question of whether price still drives conversion behaviour in 2026: it does, and it leads every other factor in the model. The practical implication for Google Shopping and PPC campaigns is to ensure the price shown in product feeds is competitive against the visible SERP comparison set on a per-product basis, not just at the catalogue level. 74% of shoppers will switch on a lower regular price; if your Shopping feed is priced 5-10% above the visible alternatives on the same SERP, click-through and conversion rate will reflect that, regardless of ad copy quality.
The 75% "money-off beats percentage-off" finding has direct conversion-rate-optimisation implications. On baskets and product detail pages, "£5 off when you spend £25" tends to convert better than "20% off" even when the absolute discount is identical, because the cash figure removes the mental arithmetic. The same logic explains why BOGOF (73%) outperforms multi-buy (55%) - the value is visible, immediate and parses in a single glance. For ecommerce builds, this argues for promotion modules that lead with cash savings, with the percentage equivalent as supporting copy rather than the headline.
The shrinkflation and channel-pricing-disparity findings carry a quieter but more serious commercial signal. 64% of consumers find shrinkflation unfair, 66% would prefer an honest price rise over a quiet size reduction, and shoppers strongly object to higher prices on mobile apps vs desktop (-51% fairness) or different prices online vs in-store (-45%). For UK retailers running app-only pricing or rotating between online and in-store promotions, this is a trust risk that compounds with every visit. Consistency of unit pricing across channels is now itself a conversion variable.
For paid search and Shopping operators, the data argues for tighter integration between price-feed monitoring (does my Google Shopping price beat the SERP comparison set for this query, today?) and creative testing. Most UK retailers test ad copy, headlines and product images, but few test the cash-saving vs percentage-saving framing inside the ad or on the landing-page hero. Capgemini implies that test is overdue. For organic SEO traffic, the same hierarchy of perceived value applies to category pages and product schema - fairness, transparency and clarity of price now sit alongside product quality as primary conversion signals. See our UK BNPL adoption report for the complementary view on how payment-flexibility signals also drive conversion in mid-ticket discretionary categories.
How they got the data
Capgemini Research Institute surveyed 12,000 consumers aged 18 and over across 12 countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States) via an online questionnaire in October 2025. The survey covers consumer products and retail purchase behaviours, with stratification across age (Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers), gender (50% women, 50% men in the October 2025 wave), residential area (urban, suburban, rural) and annual household income brackets. Capgemini supplemented the quantitative data with in-depth interviews with more than ten executives from consumer-products and retail industries.
The headline switching and promotion-effectiveness figures cited in this report are drawn from the full N=12,000 sample with country-level breakdowns referenced where Capgemini has published them. Capgemini notes that survey findings reflect respondent views and are intended to provide directional guidance rather than absolute market measurements; the panel-based online methodology is industry-standard for international consumer-trends research and is comparable to PwC's Voice of the Consumer series in scope and approach.
The 2026 wave is directly comparable with prior Capgemini consumer-trends waves (November 2022 N=11,300, November 2023 N=11,681, November 2024 N=12,000) for longitudinal trend analysis, which is how the report identifies shifts such as the 21pp drop in private-label preference (from 65% in November 2024 to 44% in October 2025) and the 17pp easing of impulse-purchase restraint (from 71% to 54% over the same period).
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From Capgemini Research Institute · published 01/01/2026