Full price shopping could become less common as price-conscious and promotion-dependent consumers become more reliant on discounting, new research from invent.ai, the AI-decisioning platform for end-to-end retail planning, reveals.

As retailers head into Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM), one of the biggest promotional periods of the year, original research among over 1,000 shoppers by invent.ai shows that six in ten (60%) believe that full-price shopping will become less common in the future, with almost half (48%) admitting they now rarely purchase goods at full price.

Shoppers admit to rising discount dependency

With consumer incomes remaining squeezed, shoppers have now moved beyond promotion-sensitivity and are increasingly relying on discounts to make their budgets work harder. Almost two thirds (62%) are more promotions-driven in their buying behaviours compared to a year ago, while 61% expect to become even more reliant on discounts over the next 12 months.

As discounting becomes increasingly embedded in shoppers’ buying behaviours, this purchasing pattern is being reinforced by retailers’ own promotional strategies around key discounting periods, such as BFCM.

Over half (55%) say these high-profile promotional events have trained them to seek out deals and discounts, while 48% now actively plan their shopping around promotional periods like Black Friday, rising to 62% of Millennials.

Sophisticated ways to seek value

“With consumers becoming more sophisticated in how they seek out value, retailers face growing pressure to balance increasingly promotional shopping behaviours with the need to protect profitability, particularly during Peak Trading when demand volatility, stock availability and markdown exposure can put further pressure on margins,” said invent.ai’s Sales Director, Lukas Fischer.

Even outside of discounting events, 59% of shoppers now actively hold out for offers before making purchases, rising to 64% of Gen Z, while over half (51%) always wait for a discount before buying, increasing to 61% among both Gen Z and Millennials.

Having been conditioned to expect promotions, AI is also reinforcing shoppers’ discount-driven expectations, potentially jeopardising retailers’ ability to sell at full -price as regularly in the future.

AI search accelerates decline of full-price sales

With the ease and speed of AI price comparisons and deal searching driving that acceleration, over a third (36%) of shoppers already actively use AI to hunt for discounts, increasing to 53% among Millennials.  Almost half (46%) believe AI will make full-price shopping less common in the future, while 47% say finding discounts has become easier now that AI can compare products for them, rising to 62% of Gen Z.

“On top of embedded discount expectations driven by promotional events, AI’s ability to make deal hunting fast and accurate is only adding further pressure on retailers, who are already struggling to balance increasingly price-sensitive consumers with mounting margin pressures,” Fischer added.

“While full-price selling may be under threat, profitability doesn’t have to be.”

“Retailers may not be able to reverse discount dependency, but they can forecast their way out of the margin pressures it creates.”

“By leveraging AI for demand forecasting and inventory optimisation, retailers can better anticipate demand, optimise stock allocation and reduce the excess inventory that leads to reactive markdowns, protecting profitability without relying on blanket discounting to drive sales,” he concluded.