Deloitte (2025) — consumer value seeking and brand value perception

Summary:

This article from Deloitte, a consulting firm that sells strategy, pricing, operations and technology services to consumer brands, looks at what consumers mean by “value” and why some brands seem to give more of it for the price.

Deloitte combines several datasets. The core is HundredX survey data: 900,000+ consumer responses on 290 brands over three years to February 2025. Respondents chose which brands to rate based on past purchases and future plans. Deloitte adds a Converge credit card panel of about 5 million cards, 300+ earnings calls and annual reports, TrustID survey data from 43,560 consumers, and ConsumerSignals surveys of 9,000 US adults (September 2024 – May 2025).

Key findings:
• 4 in 10 Americans are value seekers, meaning they show at least three cost-cutting or deal-driven habits a month. Nearly half of baby boomers and Gen X fall in this group, and nearly 3 in 10 value seekers are young families with six-figure median incomes.
• Higher-income value seekers plan to spend about half as much as their non-value-seeking peers on clothing, restaurants, recreation, personal care and household goods. Data and mobile and leisure travel are the least affected.
• Price perception predicts 60% to 90% of value perception, so 10% to 40% comes from other factors.
• “More-value-for-the-price” (MVP) brands, whose value scores are at least 10% above what their price predicts, had higher net purchase intent in all five sectors studied over 36 months.
• Spending share moved toward MVP brands: 2.0% in grocery and restaurants, 1.8% in hotels and 0.6% in apparel, according to the credit card panel.
• MVP brands score higher on quality, staff attitude and trust. Higher-priced MVPs are rated at least 20% more capable of delivering quality than lower-priced MVPs.
• The drivers of value differ by sector. In grocery, it is produce, clean aisles and fast checkout. In apparel, store service and fit. In hotels, atmosphere, rooms and food. In restaurants, presentation, food temperature and atmosphere. In automotive, performance, comfort, style and service.

Margin notes:
This is a vendor report: its recommendations point toward the pricing, data and AI work Deloitte sells. The findings come from different datasets with different samples and methods, so they don’t all rest on the same evidence. Much of the data is self-reported, and the main HundredX sample is self-selected rather than random. The MVP and LVP groupings are Deloitte’s own regression-based labels, and the purchase-share shift shows a correlation, not proof that perceived value caused it.