86% of Shoppers Would Still Buy Premium. Here’s What’s Stopping Them.

The last time shoppers wanted something expensive, only 1 in 5 actually bought it.

That’s one of the findings from a consumer survey Stryde ran in September 2026. We asked U.S. shoppers how fuel prices, rising costs and their own household budgets are shaping the way they buy premium products. By premium, we mean the things our DTC clients sell every day: the $300 cooler, the $400 stroller, the $350 set of sheets, the statement piece for the living room. Anything north of $100 to $150.

The headline isn’t that shoppers have stopped buying. It’s that most of them are waiting for a reason to. 86% named something that would get them to buy the premium product they’ve been holding off on. What that something is, and how much of it your business can afford to give, is going to decide who wins the next six months. Starting with Black Friday.

Key findings

• 38% of shoppers say gas prices are hitting their household budget “a lot” or are “a major strain.” Only 8% say they aren’t feeling it at all.
• Nearly a third (31%) say their household finances are better than six months ago. Not everyone is feeling the pain.
• 39% are likely to buy a premium product in the next three months. 17% are undecided.
• Only 20% bought the last higher-priced item they wanted, and just half of those paid full price. 44% waited instead.
• 14% switched to a cheaper brand or bought used, and 9% bought fewer items overall.
• 29% say a discount of 20% or more is the single thing most likely to get them to buy. It’s the top answer by a wide margin.
• 38% point to something that costs less than a discount: free shipping and easy returns, flexible payments, or proof the product is worth it.

Why premium brands are feeling the squeeze

It starts at the pump. The national average for diesel hit a record $6.53 a gallon on September 22, up nearly 77% from a year ago (Chase / AAA). Regular gas is sitting around $4.48 (TopSpeed / AAA).

Diesel is the fuel that moves almost everything your customers buy, so the cost doesn’t stay at the truck stop. It works its way down the chain:

1. Fuel costs climb, especially diesel.
2. Freight gets more expensive, and landed product costs go up.
3. Brands pass those costs on, through higher prices or added fees. Some retailers are already adding surcharges to online orders (NPR).
4. Everyday essentials cost more.
5. Shoppers have less disposable income left for anything premium.

If you sell a $100+ product, you get hit from both directions. Your costs are going up, and the people you sell to have less left over at the end of the month. When that happens, shoppers do one of two things. They don’t buy, or they go looking for something cheaper.

The pressure is real, but it isn’t landing evenly

Nearly four in ten households say fuel prices are a serious drag on their budget.

But ask the same people about their overall finances and a different picture shows up. 24% say they’re worse off than six months ago, 45% say they’re about the same, and 31% say they’re better off.

That’s the part a lot of brands miss. Not everyone is feeling the pain. There will always be shoppers with plenty of disposable income who keep buying, no matter what the headlines say. When we asked about the next three months, 39% said they’re likely to buy a premium product, and another 17% are on the fence.

So the buyers are still out there. There are just fewer of them; they’re harder to find, and every one of them is being shown a cheaper option. Marketing has to get smarter: sharper targeting to find them, clearer messaging to attract them, and a stronger offer to convert them.

Shoppers aren’t leaving. They’re waiting.

We asked what people actually did the last time they wanted a higher-priced item.

Only 20% bought it, and half of those needed buy-now-pay-later or financing to get there. Just 1 in 10 paid full price.

But only 12% walked away completely. The biggest group, 44%, simply waited: 28% for a sale or discount code, and 15% with no timeline at all. That isn’t lost demand. It’s delayed demand, and a lot of it is sitting in your abandoned-cart and browse-abandonment lists right now.

The catch is that waiting is dangerous for a premium brand. Every day a shopper waits is another day they’re being shown something cheaper.

There’s always a cheaper option

Here’s the reality every premium brand has to accept: there will always be a cheaper option. For the $350 set of sheets, it’s a $60 set on Amazon with thousands of reviews. For the $400 stroller, it’s a $150 lookalike at Walmart. For the premium cooler, it’s the store brand sitting right next to it.

When money gets tight, shoppers lean into those options. Not because they stopped caring about quality, but because they need to make ends meet. In our survey, 14% had already switched to a cheaper brand or bought used, and another 9% bought fewer items overall. Add the 44% who are waiting, and two-thirds of shoppers are either trading down or still deciding.

Comparison shopping also looks different than it used to. More shoppers now ask ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews or Perplexity for “a cheaper alternative to [your brand]” or “is [your product] worth it?” If your website and content don’t make the case for you, the AI fills in the answer with whatever it can find, and that’s often a roundup of cheaper options.

You can’t out-cheap Amazon or Walmart. What you can do is make the cheaper option look like the more expensive decision. That comes down to messaging and storytelling: what your website says, how your product pages are built, and whether a shopper leaves understanding exactly why you’re worth it. We’ll get to how below.

The 20% problem, and what it means for Black Friday

When we asked what would most likely get people to buy a premium product they’ve been holding off on, one answer stood out.

29% said a discount of 20% or more, the top answer by a wide margin. And remember, 28% of shoppers have already been sitting on a purchase, waiting for a sale or a discount code.

Put those together and the message for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is clear. Shoppers are waiting for this moment, and they expect it to be big. A 10% code isn’t going to move someone who has been holding out for months. Brands will need to bring their biggest, most impressive offer of the year to win the customer.

Here’s the problem: that offer lands at the same time your landed costs are going up. The math gets tight fast.

Take an illustrative $300 product:

	Last year, full price	This BFCM, 20% off
Selling price	$300	$240
Landed product cost	$120	$132 (up 10%)
Gross profit per order	$180	$108

That’s 40% less gross profit per order before you’ve spent a dollar on ads. To earn the same gross profit, you’d need to sell about 1.7 times as many units.

So bring the big offer, but build it on purpose:

• Know your floor first. Run the margin math on this year’s landed costs, not last year’s, before you pick a number.
• Make it feel bigger than it costs. Bundles, gift-with-purchase, tiered spend-more-save-more offers and BFCM-exclusive products can deliver the same perceived value as a big percentage off, while protecting more margin than a sitewide code.
• Capture the waiters now. Launch a VIP early-access list in October so the shoppers who are waiting raise their hands before the big day. Then give that list first access.
• Stack the cheaper levers on top. Free shipping, extended holiday returns and “4 payments of $60” all add value without deepening the discount.
• Don’t let it bleed into December. A 20% offer that runs all quarter trains shoppers to never pay full price again.

The levers that cost less than a discount

Discounting gets the headline, but it isn’t the only way to tip a buyer. 38% of shoppers named something that doesn’t require cutting your price at all.

Free shipping and easy returns (13%). This one is tricky right now, because higher fuel costs are exactly what’s pushing brands to add shipping fees and surcharges. Resist that where you can.

Build shipping into the price, set a free-shipping threshold just above your average order value, and put your return policy where shoppers see it before they add to cart. On a premium purchase, taking away the risk of being wrong is worth a lot.

Flexible payment options (13%). One in ten shoppers already used buy-now-pay-later or financing on their last premium purchase. If you offer Shop Pay Installments, Affirm, Klarna or Afterpay, show it on the product page, not just at checkout. “$349 or 4 payments of $87.25” changes how a price feels.

Proof it’s worth it (12%). Reviews, warranties, durability and cost per use. This is the lever most brands underinvest in, and it’s the one that actually separates you from the cheaper alternative. It’s also where your messaging does the heavy lifting.

Another 19% said they’re simply waiting for their own finances to improve. You can’t control that. What you can control is whether your brand is still in front of them when it happens.

Stop leaning on differentiators. Sell the why.

In a tighter economy, differentiators matter less. A shopper comparing your $350 sheets to a $60 set isn’t weighing thread counts. They’re asking one question: is the difference worth it to me?

Three levers answer it.

1. Lean into the pain you solve – Name the problem in your customer’s own words. The cheaper option is always “close enough” until you remind them what close enough actually costs them.
2. Lead with your why – Why does your brand exist, and why should someone buy from you instead of a marketplace? A clear reason for being gives buyers permission to spend more.
3. Show the value – Make the math obvious: durability, warranty, years of use, cost per use. If a shopper can’t explain in one sentence why you’re worth three times the cheaper option, your website hasn’t done its job.

Here’s what that shift looks like on a product page (an illustrative example):

	Differentiator-led	Pain, why and value-led
Headline	600-thread-count long-staple cotton sateen	Stop waking up at 3 a.m. too hot to sleep
Story	Premium materials, woven in Portugal	We started this company after years of cheap sheets that pilled, trapped heat and wore out in a year
Value	Luxury you can feel	Built to last 7+ years. That’s about 14 cents a night

Then carry that same story everywhere a shopper might be comparing you:

• Homepage and product pages: lead with the problem, and put your proof, warranty, returns and payment options above the fold.
• Paid social: rotate from feature-led creative to problem-led creative and real customer stories.
• Paid search: bid on “worth it” and comparison queries, and answer the value question in the ad itself.
• Email and SMS: give the shoppers who are waiting a reason to buy, not just a reminder that their cart is still there.
• SEO and AI search: publish comparison pages, buying guides and durability content, so you show up when shoppers ask ChatGPT or Google whether you’re worth it.

Whatever you do, don’t turn off the lights

When the economy tightens, marketing is usually the first line item on the chopping block. I watched this play out in 2008 and 2009. Brands that pulled back on marketing, or cut it completely to tighten their belts, lost visibility and lost customers. A lot of them went out of business. The brands that kept showing up picked up the share their competitors left behind.

The research backs that up. A McGraw-Hill Research study followed 600 companies through the 1981-82 recession. By 1985, the companies that kept advertising aggressively had sales 256% higher than the ones that cut back.

Here’s the hard part. Continuing to invest while your costs rise is going to squeeze the business. For the next six to twelve months, your bottom line may be a little smaller than it used to be. It may be a lot smaller. Get comfortable with that.

Break-even or a small loss is not failure. If you’re still in business, still building brand awareness and still in front of the buyers who are spending, you’ll come out of this ahead of every competitor who went quiet.

If you want a second set of eyes on your messaging or your Black Friday offer before November, let’s talk.

About this research

Stryde conducted this survey in September 2026 through a SurveyMonkey online consumer panel. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of ±7.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, so small differences between answers shouldn’t be read as meaningful.

Who we surveyed

Who we surveyed	Share of respondents
Ages 18-29	14%
Ages 30-44	33%
Ages 45-60	28%
Ages 60+	24%
Women / men	51% / 49%
Household income under $50K	27%
Household income $50K-$99K	28%
Household income $100K or more	42%
Primary household decision-maker for groceries	88%
Primary decision-maker for home furnishings and maintenance	63%
Took the survey on a phone or tablet	93%

Respondents came from all nine U.S. Census divisions, led by the South Atlantic (22%), Pacific (18%), West South Central (14%) and East North Central (14%). “Premium” was described to respondents as higher-priced products such as home goods, apparel, wellness, or outdoor and recreation items. Percentages are rounded and may not total 100%.