Wunderkind-Cordial Survey: 56% of Shoppers Put Price First, Only 25% of Marketers Agree

Fifty-six percent of U.S. consumers rank lowest price as a leading consideration when choosing where to buy online. Only one quarter of senior marketers believe price is a top consideration for shoppers, according to a new survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers and 150 U.S.-based marketing professionals conducted by Wunderkind and Cordial.

The report, titled "The Customer Marketing Gap," quantifies a persistent mismatch between what apparel and retail brands invest in and what customers actually respond to. The divide spans pricing, channel strategy, personalization and AI.

Cordial supplies agentic messaging with an embedded CDP to Levi Strauss & Co., Tapestry, L.L.Bean and Boot Barn. Wunderkind counts Harley-Davidson and Kendra Scott among its clients. Both vendors have a commercial stake in the martech categories the survey evaluates — a fact buyers should weigh when reading the findings.

"Both marketers and consumers want better experiences, but they define value differently," the report's authors said.

How wide is the price and discount gap?

The price disconnect carries into brand messaging. Half of consumers said discounts are among the strongest factors determining whether they pay attention to a brand message. Just 26 percent of marketers view discounts that way.

That gap matters for margin planning. If shoppers are 2.2 times more price-sensitive than marketers assume, CRM calendars and promotional budgets built on internal assumptions risk misallocating spend toward channels and creative that underperform on conversion.

Channel strategy shows the same skew. The survey found 82 percent of shoppers prefer email and 64 percent prefer SMS. Marketers place greater emphasis on social media: 74 percent of marketers prioritize it versus 39 percent of consumers.

For apparel brands weighting paid social heavily in their acquisition mix, that spread suggests a reallocation case toward owned channels — email and SMS — which typically carry lower cost per order and higher retention economics.

Does AI personalization match consumer confidence?

The sharpest expectation mismatch concerns AI. The report found 59 percent of marketers expect AI-powered personalization to have the biggest impact on customer marketing over the next three years. Only 16 percent of consumers say AI currently improves their shopping experience, and 27 percent say they do not trust AI to personalize experiences at all.

"AI and personalization have significant potential, but only when they are built around a clear understanding of the customer," said Rob Garf, chief strategy officer at Cordial.

Personalization measurement shows a parallel gap. Sixty-one percent of marketers said relevant product recommendations have a major impact on conversion. Only 32 percent of consumers say recommendations make shopping easier.

Instead, shoppers placed higher value on friction-reduction features: saved carts (48 percent) and faster checkout (48 percent) — investments that compete directly with recommendation-engine budgets for IT and e-commerce roadmaps.

What should brands fix first?

The survey points to data quality as the highest-leverage fix. Forty-two percent of marketers said more accurate customer data would have the greatest impact on customer marketing performance, followed by improved personalization at 37 percent. Limited customer data and fragmented systems tied as the leading barriers to personalization, at 19 percent each.

"Lifecycle marketing enters a new phase where having more data and more technology is not enough," said Amandine Servain, vice president of marketing at Wunderkind. "Successful brands understand what customers actually value and translate those insights into experiences that are useful, relevant and meaningful."

On trust, 46 percent of consumers said clear explanations of how their data is used would increase trust in personalization. Forty-one percent value preference control, and 41 percent want brands to use only information shared directly — a compliance-relevant signal as privacy regulation tightens across U.S. states.

The findings argue for apparel and retail brands to audit their personalization stack against measured consumer preference before scaling AI investment. For sourcing and digital teams alike, the survey implies budget discipline: basics — price clarity, discounts, email, fast checkout — currently outperform advanced automation on shopper perception, and brands that close the identity-and-data gap first will be positioned to deploy AI personalization with credibility.