What’s the psychology of the digital shelf

How consumers shop and decide today

Consumer behavior has shifted and reached a new baseline since 2020. These changes now shape how people discover products, compare options, and make decisions across digital channels, which directly affects how brands approach selling on the digital shelf. McKinsey identifies five behaviors that continue to shape consumer activity across major markets.

1. People spend more time alone and online

Consumers allocate their time differently than they did before 2020. In the United States, people report having more free time each week, and nearly 90% of that additional time is spent on solo activities. Shopping and social media use rank among the activities with the most significant increases.

2. Digital channels win users but not trust

Consumers engage heavily with digital and social platforms, but that doesn’t mean they immediately trust what they see. Social media ranks as the least trusted source for buying decisions, while personal networks, such as family and friends, remain the most trusted. That gap becomes more visible as AI in e-commerce increasingly influences what buyers see first through ranked search results, personalized feeds, and automated recommendations.

3. Product research increasingly happens on social platforms

Despite being the least trusted source for buying decisions, the use of social media for product research continues to rise. 32% of consumers research products on social platforms, up from 27% in 2023. A measurable number of consumers report purchasing brands they first encountered through social media. Discovery happens through feeds and recommendations, now more commonly driven by automated and AI-driven systems. 

4. Consumers choose local over global

Preference for locally owned companies influences purchase decisions across markets. McKinsey says 47% of consumers globally say local ownership is essential when deciding what to buy, reflecting a shift in how brands are evaluated alongside price and availability.

5. Value decisions involve constant trade-offs

Rising prices remain the top consumer concern across markets. Many consumers trade down in one category while planning to spend more in another, and deal-seeking behavior remains widespread. Comparison across options has become a regular part of how consumers decide what to buy.

Key principles of the digital shelf psychology

How consumers buy today shapes how your products are evaluated and compared online. When buyers shop online, they have limited attention and many options available at once. Once they move into comparison mode, the same decision patterns tend to repeat across categories and channels. The following principles reflect how buying decisions take shape on the digital shelf.

• Visibility comes before consideration
  
  Shoppers often start by searching when discovering products. More than half of shoppers surveyed say they use Google to discover new brands. With the rollout of conversational commerce, shoppers can now search, compare, and buy products without leaving the environment where discovery begins. Programs like ChatGPT’s new Merchants initiative allow consumers to browse products using natural language and complete purchases directly in the conversation through Instant Checkout. So, if your product doesn’t appear in search results, category listings, or conversational results, your buyers are more likely to compare products from other brands instead.
• Content influences confidence
  
  Buyers rely on product information to decide whether a product meets their needs. According to the GS1 US Consumer Pulse Survey, 77% of consumers say product information is important when making a purchase, and 62% are willing to spend more money on products that offer detailed information. Missing or incomplete product data creates hesitation during comparison and complicates digital shelf management at scale.
• Visuals accelerate evaluation
  
  Shoppers expect rich visual content when evaluating products online. The DHL E-commerce Trends Report 2025 shows that images, videos, and interactive product visuals play a central role in how consumers assess products before buying. Clear, varied visuals help buyers understand products more quickly without needing to do additional research.
• Clarity replaces in-store assistance
  
  Buyers rely on online information to answer practical questions before making a purchase. In a global survey, most shoppers who searched online before visiting a store said they looked for details such as product availability, nearby locations, and store hours, while 59% use Google to research purchases they plan to make, whether in-store or online. Clear, accessible information supports decision-making before buyers ever reach the shelf, reducing reliance on reactive digital shelf monitoring.
• Consistency shapes trust across touchpoints
  
  Trust influences how buyers choose between products. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 report shows that trust ranks alongside price and quality as a deciding factor in purchase decisions, and that brands are trusted more than institutions and media. When buyers encounter conflicting or unreliable information across digital touchpoints, decision-making becomes more difficult and confidence declines, increasing friction tied to consistency on the digital shelf and downstream product returns.

5 Tips to digital shelf psychology

Small gaps in how products show up often decide whether your buyer keeps looking or moves on. These tips focus on the parts of the digital shelf that your product and content teams can actually control day to day.

1. Make sure your products show up where buyers start

Most buyers begin with search or category pages, not product pages. If your products are buried or missing from filtered views, they never get compared. To optimize your digital shelf, spend time looking at how key products surface across retailers, not just whether they exist in the system.

2. Keep product visuals consistent across listings

Product images usually get more attention than text. When image styles, angles, or quality differ from one listing to another, comparisons become harder than they should be. A consistent visual setup, through Digital Shelf Analytics, helps people scan options faster and understand what they are looking at without extra effort.

3. Keep availability and delivery information current

Stock status and delivery timing influence decisions more than most teams expect. If availability looks unclear, outdated, or different across channels, hesitation creeps in quickly. Keeping this information accurate helps avoid unnecessary drop-off during comparison.

4. Focus on the details people actually check

Product pages get scanned, not read. Specs, attributes, and key details need to be easy to find and complete, especially for information buyers who use them to confirm fit or suitability. Missing or vague details often push people to look elsewhere for answers.

5. Look at your products the way shoppers do

Comparison rarely happens on a single site. Products get checked across retailers, marketplaces, and apps, sometimes within the same session. Seeing the same product appear in different places helps surface gaps that are easy to miss when teams review only one channel at a time.

How PIM supports digital shelf performance day to day

Keeping the digital shelf in shape usually breaks down on execution, not strategy. Your product teams deal with late changes, missing details, and updates that need to land in several places at once. When product information is scattered across spreadsheets, emails, and retailer portals, inconsistencies are hard to avoid.

A product information management (PIM) system helps by providing your team with a single place to manage product details before they are pushed out to channels. Titles, attributes, images, and specifications stay aligned because updates occur only once, not 5 times. This is where the right PIM features that support digital shelf work make a practical difference as assortments grow and channels multiply.

From a digital shelf point of view, that control matters. Clean, consistent product information supports comparison, reduces back-and-forth fixes, and helps teams respond faster when something breaks. Instead of reacting to issues after buyers notice them, teams can maintain a steadier digital shelf presence that holds up across retailers, marketplaces, and regions.

Take control of digital shelf decisions

Digital shelf psychology shapes how buyers notice, compare, and decide in seconds. Visibility, clear information, and consistency influence whether your products stay in consideration or get skipped. Keeping those signals aligned becomes harder as products, channels, and updates scale, especially when your team relies on fragmented data and limited ways of tracking digital shelf metrics across channels. PIM gives your team control over product information before those moments happen, so changes do not break comparison or slow decisions.

What happens to your digital shelf when product data needs to change quickly?

Book a demo to see how Inriver helps product and content teams manage updates, maintain consistency, and support confident buying decisions across every channel.