How Consumer Income Affects Retail Brand Loyalty and Shopping Personalities

Leverage insights on these key customer income demographics from our 2022 Retail Customer Brand Loyalty Study to help inform your customer retention and relationship strategies.

As a retailer, you may think of household consumer income as it relates to your product selection, branding, marketing and possibly store layout. But did you know that affluence also affects customer loyalty? In fact, affluence affects a consumer’s “shopping personality,” determining whether they are more likely to shop around before making a purchase versus remaining loyal to a retailer that meets their needs.

This is among the key findings from customer.com’s breakthrough Retail Customer Brand Loyalty Study, which offers never-before-published insights into customer loyalty and retention statistics. Here, we take a closer look at the ways consumer income influences the factors most likely to build brand loyalty among your customer base.

Consumer Income Strongly Influences Shopping Personality

Not surprisingly, demographics — especially household income — play a role in determining an individual’s shopping personality. What is surprising is that, generally, as household income rises, consumers report that they prefer to shop around more. In other words, the higher income customers are more likely to be a Roamer.

This is counterintuitive. One might assume that consumers on slimmer budgets might shop around more to find the best deals, but our Loyalty Study data was very clear, indicating a correlation between higher household income and the desire to shop around before making a purchase.

Conversely, the lower the income, the more likely the consumer will be a Loyalist, tending to find a go-to retailer for their needs and sticking with them.

How Shopper Personality Changes by Household Consumer Income

Our Loyalty Study also identified two main categories of loyalty factors:

• Passion Factors, which are more intangible, such as trust, status symbol or perception of a caring staff
• Practical Factors, which tend to be more tangible, such as ability to look up past transactions, make an easy purchase or easy returns

In general, lower income consumers, as Loyalists, tended to put more preference toward Passion Factors. Higher income consumers, as Roamers, leaned more heavily toward Practical Factors.

Consumer Income Affects Primary Brand Loyalty Factors

Overall, factors like good value for the money, easy to make purchases, convenient shopping experience, lowest price and quality of products were most frequently reported by consumers as important to engendering their loyalty. However, when household income is taken into consideration, a different picture emerges.

For instance, lower income consumers — those  with household incomes under $50,000 — are more likely than the general population and especially more affluent consumers to list lowest price as a primary loyalty factor. They are also more likely to list fair treatment and caring staff as top factors driving their loyalty.

Middle-class consumers are more likely to list convenient shopping experience, feel the retailer is socially responsible and VIP benefits and experience as important to their loyalty.

Higher income consumers — those with incomes $125,000 or above — are much more likely to indicate unique products, assortment and trust as loyalty drivers. Interestingly, this group was also more likely than the general population to list receive incentives to shop with retailer as an important driver. Retailers who tend to serve more affluent consumers would be mistaken in thinking that providing incentives and benefits to this group is not an effective strategy to drive traffic, sales and loyalty.

Most Important Loyalty Factors by Household Income Group

After consumers identified their most important loyalty drivers, they were asked to rank those factors. Less affluent consumers placed lowest price at the top, while respondents from households with incomes greater than $25,000 ranked good value for the money as their number one loyalty driver.

Top 5 Loyalty Factors by Household Income Group

Impact of Consumer Income When All Things Are Equal

Many retailers today find themselves in a market environment with little differentiation from competitors. The study asked respondents which factors would prompt them to select one retailer over another if both offered identical products, prices and access. Once again, consumer response on which factors would drive loyalty, “all things being equal,” varied depending on the affluence of the respondent.

For instance, consumers in lower income households were more likely to list fair treatment, status and feel retailer is socially responsible as tie-breaking factors that would induce loyalty. Middle-class consumers reported receive incentives to shop with retailer as an important tiebreaker. The most affluent were more likely to list VIP benefits and experiences, customer service and caring staff as important determining factors if two retailers offered the same products at the same price and with the same access.

Consumer Income Affects Retailer Preference

Survey respondents were asked to name the retailers that they exclusively shopped for particular needs. Surprisingly, many of the retailers listed were the same across multiple income groups. For instance, Walmart, Amazon and Target were listed as the top three retailers across all customer income groups.

Walmart holds the number one spot for consumers with household incomes less than $75,000. To put that into perspective, that is 52% of the U.S. population. Amazon holds the top spot for households with incomes greater than $75,000 — or the 48% of the population with the greatest disposable income.

In the less-than-$25,000 income group, Dollar General and Dollar Tree were among the top 10 retailers. Costco made the top 10 among consumer incomes of $75,000 or more, while Kohl’s made the top 10 among household customer incomes between $25,000 and $150,000.

The Top 10 Retailers to Which Consumers Are Most Loyal, by Income

What These Customer Loyalty Statistics Mean for Retailers

Our Retail Customer Brand Loyalty Study revealed interesting and sometimes unexpected relationships between consumer income and brand loyalty. For instance, we learned that:

• Lower income consumers were more likely to be Loyalists and that they value low price, fair treatment and caring staff.
• Middle-class consumers value a convenient shopping experience as well as feeling a retailer is socially responsible.
• Higher income customers tend to be Roamers and look for unique products, status, incentives and VIP benefits.

Understanding how income affects the factors that drive consumer brand loyalty and engagement can help guide your customer retention strategies. Just remember that implementing any strategies tied to these factors isn’t only a marketing initiative. You’ll need to take an enterprise-wide approach to gain the greatest impact — and the most customer loyalty.