Image Courtesy of Gap Inc.
June 20, 2025
Are Retail Consumers Tired of Being ‘Bombarded’ With Deals?
Everyone who owns a smartphone and spends at least a few hours per week browsing various retail sites, whether out of curiosity or necessity, is familiar with the ever-present litany of SMS messages, app notifications, and email blasts signaling daily deals from dozens of different brands.
The same could be said for those who venture to brick-and-mortar stores, whether looking for a nice linen outfit for a breezy summer ensemble or something to toss on the grill (or the grill itself) for a summer barbecue with friends and family.
When endless deal alerts present themselves on a regular basis, perhaps some of that novelty fades into fatigue. That’s the conundrum most recently posed by Richard Dickson, CEO of clothing retailer Gap Inc., in comments made during this year’s Cannes Lions festival held in France.
Gap CEO: Consumers Are ‘Bombarded’ by Promos
In remarks detailed by Business Insider, Dickson shared that Gap — once a company famous for its branding and celebrity partnerships — had somehow lost its way to become one among many: a company that relied on blasting shoppers with promotions rather than letting its cache speak for itself.
“This is a brand that, through its narrative, changed culture and/or shaped culture,” Dickson said. “Somewhere along the way, we lost the art of that brand-merchant storytelling and became a retailer that sold stuff. So we had to go in and edit.”
Following his involvement in revitalizing the Barbie brand for Mattel, Dickson signed on as CEO for Gap in 2023. As the CEO sees it, despite Gap still having a relatively healthy public image, it had gone astray from the core principles that had made it a household name — and destination — years ago.
“The brand started and sort of personified itself by celebrating big product ideas into major campaigns that were about what we’ll call fashion-tainment,” Dickson suggested, adding that he was currently engaged in an effort to curtail the company’s now-infamous and unrelenting “percentage off” offers.
“If you had gone into a Gap store a year ago, or Old Navy, you were to some extent bombarded,” he said. “It was almost unbelievable to the extent that even internally, we would pull up our sites and I would say, what are we selling?” the Gap CEO said.
“When you go into stores and you see a sign on every single fixture, that’s not an experience that’s gonna be appealing. So our signing system has gotten a lot more refined. Our sites have become a lot more precise,” he added.
Dickson wound down discussion of the company’s new thrust by saying that promotions and deals were certainly part of the broader game plan, but that a “much more refined and directed narrative” was necessary to achieve success in today’s retail environment.
Americans Feel Overwhelmed by Notifications, Whether Retail Promos or Breaking News
Dickson’s comments reiterated findings put forth by a November 2024 PYMNTS report examining the most recent Black Friday sales event — and broader consumer sentiment surrounding the existing retail landscape at that time.
Among the findings: More than two-fifths (40.5%) said that there are too many sales events now, making these promotions feel less special; an even greater cohort (43.3%) stated that the prevalence of sales events meant that less attention was being paid to them than previously; and one-third of those surveyed agreed with the use of the same term — “bombarded” — to describe their feelings in relation to contemporary sales promos.
One touchpoint in particular, the smartphone, may be seeing consumers of both retail products and news briefs feeling equally tired of the incessant message notifications and associated correspondence. On a tangential note, The Guardian outlined a recent survey conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which found that 79% of global respondents currently did not receive any news alerts during the average week — however, nearly half of that population (43%) had personally taken the time to block or disable these notifications.
With news alerts sometimes reaching upwards of 40 or 50 messages a day, and retailer promotions following suit with daily SMS, app, and email blasts, it is a distinct possibility that U.S. shoppers are simply tuning out the noise — or blocking those retail touchpoints altogether, deeming them more of a hindrance than help.
Discussion Questions
Is “deal fatigue” real? How can retailers avoid being blocked by loyal customers while keeping open and effective lines of communication?
Should brands cut back on how often they reach out to focus on more meaningful messages, or keep up the frequency to stay top-of-mind? Is there a smarter middle ground?
Which brands are most notorious for constantly messaging their customer base? Is this to their detriment, or does it drive sales?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Brad Halverson
Principal, Clearbrand CX
Anil Patel
Founder & CEO, HotWax Commerce
Frank Margolis
Executive Director, Growth Marketing & Business Development, Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions
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There are more deals and offers than there were a few years back. This is mostly because budgets are more constrained, and the environment is more competitive. Deals are one mechanism by which retailers try to secure customer and market share. I am not sure that consumers are tired of deals, per se, but the prevalence of them does have an impact on spending patterns and behaviors. One example is Black Friday where the day or immediate period around the day has become less important than it used to be because the event has become prolonged. The efficacy of deals is also weakened because they are more frequent.
And nice picture of Gap’s Santa Monica store. I was there just last week! And there were a lot of deals and offers in play – but interestingly they weren’t Gap’s usual x% off. They were buy one get one 50% off, which is obviously designed to drive volume!
Is “deal fatigue” when the customer says, “There is no urgency. There will be another deal on Monday.
This is retail’s version of the prisoner’s dilemma. The fear of losing market share to competitors who are constantly promoting creates a race to the bottom, where everyone is shouting and no one is being heard; consumers are tuning out. Retail customers don’t want constant deals; they want confidence that they’re getting good value. Sometimes that’s a promotion, sometimes it’s the trust in your brand. The deals need to be intentional and valuable, rather than relying on spray-and-pray marketing.
Yes. And the disease will do serious damage to retail. Why does it exist? In part Sergio Zyman observed, “In the absence of meaning, consumers will always fall back on price.” That makes discounts the one hammer retailers bring to every problem because it’s far harder work to sort out meaning. Matters are made worse with retailer advertising having become obsessed with tactical metrics. Price reductions game those metrics yet do not deliver economic health to the retailer. Retailers need to be far more selective about the strategic damage that can be done by “deals.”
The old saying was, “what gets measured gets managed.” I think we can append that now to “what gets measured gets monetized.” Hey, if you can push that email button in Shopify or MailChimp and see what happens hour by hour, at least you can point to the transactions to prove you’re doing something.
Back when I was running catalog campaigns, I could see my matchbacks fall from around 80% in the late 2000s to under 25% in the mid 2010s, so it was a very easy decision when the time finally came to stop doing mailings! Traditional brand-building tactics have been abandoned so it’s no surprise we’re left with button-mashing.
Just because a quantity is highly measurable doesn’t make it highly meaningful. – The Marketing Metrics Fallacy
And, sadly, retailers fail to understand the potential they have for “meaning” to support higher prices and higher profits with less discounting. Sign.
Certainly some retailers. But why generalize? And for many, who have made perpetual “sales” a way of life – you know who you are …macy*s – I’m not sure how the business would even function without it.
Retailers need something to get their customers excited. How many “deals” are too many? I know one retailer who has a “Deal of the Day.” That’s every day! His customers love it. Another retailer I work with believes in sales virtually every week. The point is that, depending on your type of business, you’ll have to find the balance of what your customers like and what you can offer them.
I love “Deal of the Day”. It’s just one item and customers can remember it, they can anticipate it.
Sure, we’re flooded with more deals now, but I’d argue the perception around deal fatigue is more of a relevancy thing. People know a good deal or value when they see it, and also know when they are simply being bothered by noise.
For Macy’s, most everything is on sale, every other week, and it’s urgent. At some point, you wonder if they should just lower retails, save the administrative expense and ditch this treadmill. It’s ruined their brand perception.
Nordstrom is the opposite with fewer sales, but when they have them, they’re substantive and include things you want.
Retailers, you don’t need to send me a new message every day.
Agreed! I believe the messaging is getting exhausting
Too much discounting trains the customer to wait for a deal and is a very dangerous way to run a business. Not to mention what it does to the brand.
It’s called lazy Marketing. Every website is a CTA to save 15% right now before you even see the product. When everything is a deal -nothing is special. It’s no wonder retailers decry theft and lower traffic because they haven’t solved the riddle, why should I come and shop at your store?
It’s not deal fatigue that’s plaguing consumers, it’s math fatigue – they’re being forced to figure out which is the better deal between retailers offering competing promotions: 15% off everything vs BOGO 50% off, for example. People hating to do math, coupled with a new ‘sale’ every week, desensitizes the shopper.
1. Deal fatigue is a real thing. Constant promotions overwhelm consumers, making them ignore or block retailers they used to love. Retailers should concentrate on:
Strategic messaging: not all correspondence ought to be promotional.
Customize offers according to actual consumer behavior.
Reduce the noise with outreach that is higher quality and less frequent.
Effective merchandising allows value to be driven by product presentation and placement.
Transparency: To foster trust, explain the rationale behind transactions.
To put it briefly, retailers must stop promoting sales and instead provide meaningful value that maintains open lines of communication and customer loyalty.
2. Instead of remaining silent or loud, brands should become more intelligent. Timely and meaningful communication always outperforms
high-frequency noise.
3. Regular customer messaging, including daily emails, texts, and app notifications, is a hallmark of brands like Old Navy, SHEIN, Kohl’s, JCPenney, and Wayfair. While this increases app engagement and short-term sales, over time it frequently results in deal fatigue, unsubscribes, and weakened brand trust. Conversely, companies like Apple, Nike, and Trader Joe’s emphasize targeted, purposeful messaging that is connected to product drops, storytelling, and community in order to increase long-term customer loyalty without being overbearing. The better course of action? Communication that is consistent, meaningful, and customer-focused prioritizes quality over quantity.
Definitely, Deal fatigue is real. Retailers have caused this by sending too many discount messages. When every message looks the same, people stop noticing or unsubscribe.
The problem is not how often brands send messages. It is about what the message says and when it is sent.
Instead of sending a lot of random offers, brands should focus on sending fewer and more useful ones based on what customers actually do or need.
Some fast fashion brands send messages every day. That might bring short term sales, but over time it affects trust.
In short, retailers should stop focusing on quantity. Customers do not want more messages. They want better ones.
Deal fatigue (and clogged inboxes) are noxious consequences of marketing automation, where cheap top-of-funnel views seem to be the primary measurable goal. Too many online retailers send out daily emails and texts in an effort to drive conversion and collect coveted retail media nickels.
Too-frequent sales send a message to shoppers that the list price of merchandise is actually a fiction. It’s a short step from there to loss of trust.
Consumers don’t worry about missing a sale because they know retailers like The Gap, Old Navy, Loft and Ann Taylor will run them again next week. It’s become annoyingly predictable.
Deal fatigue is real and it has led to feeling dumb for purchasing anything at full retail. When deals are scarce, if you miss one, you miss one. When deals are nearly always available, it’s easier to postpone a purchase and wait for the deal. That’s what shoppers are being trained to do in too many categories. Not look at the service or look at the product quality, just wait for the inevitable deal.