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If 85% of US Consumers Believe Brands Are Using Inflation as a Scapegoat For Price Hikes, What Can Be Done To Restore Trust?

Written by Nicholas Morine

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Consumers are getting quite fed up with governments, retailers, and brands, if the latest Omnisend data is to be believed. According to recent survey results, a massive majority (85%) of American shoppers believe that brands and retailers “often use inflation as an excuse to raise prices more than necessary.” Further, two-thirds (67%) of respondents indicated that price hikes have altered their feelings towards once-preferred brands, and just over half (56%) indicated they’d halted purchases from brands in this basket.

On the other hand, American consumers are showing some degree of tolerance for certain price hikes — more particularly, those enacted with concrete results in terms of better product quality (19%), improved wages for employees (16%), and acceptance of increasing ingredient or material costs (15%).

“Consumers understand that costs change, but they want those changes to make sense. Shrinkflation creates the opposite impression: that a company is hoping customers will pay the same and notice less. In many cases, it can definitely feel like an insult. When households are already watching every dollar they spend, transparency around price increases matters more than ever,” said Marty Bauer, ecommerce expert for Omnisend, via the survey results.

Other notable data points presented by the survey results:

  • Grocery is a problem category: A full 89% of Americans polled said they’d experienced shrinkflation at least once, and 59% said they observe it on a regular basis. More than one-quarter of shoppers (29%) said shrinkflation is “the most unfair” example of price hiking. Nearly one-third (30%) of U.S. consumers described the current price of groceries as “out of control.”
  • Gas, utilities, housing also hard hit: While groceries were the category most cited as being out of control, gas prices (20.3%), utilities (10%), rent and/or mortgages (9.2%), healthcare costs (5.6%), insurance prices (4.7%), and dining out or takeout prices (3.4%) followed. Only 11.7% of those polled said that no categories felt like they were “out of control” in terms of prices.
  • Borrowing for essentials is becoming normalized: When posed the question of whether they’d used a variety of financial instruments or tactics to cover essentials such as groceries, gas, utilities, rent or medical expenses over the last three months, more than one-third of American respondents (35.9%) said they’d used their credit card, even when “knowing I might not pay it off right away.” Smaller yet still notable cohorts said they’d borrowed money from family or friends (13.8%), used BNPL (12.7%), had dipped into savings allocated for something else (16.2%), had delayed paying a different bill (9.3%), had taken out a payday loan or cash advance (8.4%), or had utilized a store payment plan (7.6%). Just 36.2% said they had not used any of the above to pay for essential expenses.
  • Brands only shoulder some of the blame: And while brands are suffering from consumer wrath, only 11.8% of respondents blamed put brands at the No. 1 position in terms of the blame game. The current Trump administration was the most common response in this regard (45.1%), followed by tariffs (23.9%), Congress (22.7%), a confusion as to who to blame (17.3%), and supply chain or shipping costs (12.2%).

“The general sentiment currently is that of distrust. Yes, politicians are the ones receiving the most blame, but brands shouldn’t think they’re let completely off the hook. On the contrary, consumers judge the economy through everyday experiences, including what they see on shelves and receipts. Every price increase, smaller package, or unexplained fee becomes a test of whether a company is acting fairly. Brands should take note of this. Losing trust is easy. Gaining it back takes much more time and effort,” Bauer added.

Critics Claim Activist Investors Pressuring for More Profits, Private Equity and Big Conglomerates Hollowing Out Once-Trusted Brands To Blame

Beyond the Omnisend results, reportage from The Guardian’s Heather Timmons — citing the National Consumer Rage Study — found that almost 75% of U.S. consumers had faced a quality or service issue in 2025, double the rate of the survey’s inaugural 1976 findings.

Those cited within the reportage largely indicated that activist investors pressuring for at-any-cost shareholder returns sacrificing product quality and service — as well as “big conglomerates and private equity buying up ‘trusted brands and riding that reputation out until it was a husk of what it was,'” according to one outspoken critic — were largely responsible for the increased friction between once-trusted brands and consumers.

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