Your product just landed on the shelf. A customer walks up, scans the row of packages, reaches out — and makes a decision in 13 seconds. Or picture this: that same customer is scrolling on their phone. Your product appears in their feed. Click or keep scrolling. The customer has made their choice — your competitor’s product wins. To change that outcome, you first need to understand consumer buying behavior — and what actually happens in that moment of purchase.

So What Went Wrong?

Most companies define their competition too narrowly: “Who else sells something similar to our product?” They analyze rival offerings, compare prices, track their campaigns. That matters — but it’s only a sliver of reality. Because at the moment of purchase, your product isn’t going head-to-head with a single rival. It’s fighting for the customer’s attention against everything around it — other categories, promotions, habits, the customer’s mood. And most of those forces are invisible from the conference room.

Who Are You Really Competing With at the Shelf?

  1. The entire shelf — not just “your” competition
    The customer isn’t comparing two brands. In a split second, they’re scanning dozens of options. In a supermarket, that’s 10,000 to 50,000 products. In e-commerce, it’s an infinite feed where you’re competing not just within your category, but with the algorithm that decides whether you even show up. The customer picks the product that catches their eye fastest and communicates its value most clearly. If your product doesn’t stand out in the first second — on the shelf or in a thumbnail (Hero Image) — it simply doesn’t exist.
  2. The price tag and the promo sitting right next to you
    Even if your product is objectively better, a “-30%” sticker on the product next door can flip the decision in an instant. Online, this effect is even stronger — comparison engines and dynamic pricing suddenly make your regular price feel “too high,” even if the customer wouldn’t have batted an eye before. Research shows that impulse purchases account for 40% to 80% of all buying decisions — and aggressive promotions (or free shipping online) are the most powerful triggers behind those shifts.
  3. Your competitor’s packaging
    It’s not about whether your packaging is “pretty.” It’s about whether it wins in a direct side-by-side comparison with what’s standing next to it. Is it easier to read? Does it communicate the benefit faster? Does it promise what the customer actually needs? 72% of consumers say packaging design influences their purchase decision. In e-commerce, your “packaging” is the first 3 words of the product name and how readable the details are on a small smartphone screen. If the customer has to pinch-zoom to figure out what they’re buying — you’ve already lost them. Packaging is your most important salesperson, and it has just a few seconds to close the deal.
  4. The mood and timing you can’t control
    Is the customer rushing between aisles, or browsing their phone in a doctor’s waiting room? Are they tired after work? Research shows 76% of purchase decisions are made right at the shelf. Your product needs to convince someone who often didn’t even plan to buy it — and is doing so in a state of distraction, hurry, or with a dying phone battery.
  5. The force of habit
    Consumer buying behavior data shows that habit is the toughest competitor to beat. People buy what they know. 74% of consumers are loyal to at least one brand. If a customer “always grabs that one same yogurt” or has “reorder” set up in an app, your product needs to give them a powerful, emotional reason to break the pattern. Habit doesn’t respond to rational arguments — it responds to impulse and the promise of a better experience.
72%

of consumers say packaging design influences their purchase decision

Consumer Buying Behavior: A Handful of Seconds and the Moment of Truth

How much time does a customer spend on a decision? Research puts it at an average of 13 seconds at a physical shelf. That’s the window in which an entire micro-drama of shopping plays out. First, the customer scans — and within the first few seconds, a handful of products “pop” from the background. That’s the first filter: the first impression that determines which products the customer will even reach for.

Then they pick up 2–3 products — and only now does the real choice happen. They check the price, read the tagline, turn the package around. Research says the average shopper considers just 3 brands. If your product didn’t pass the first filter, it won’t make that shortlist. Not because it’s bad. Because it didn’t grab the customer’s attention at the right moment.

In e-commerce, the mechanism is similar, though it plays out a bit longer — around 19 seconds on average. The customer scrolls, clicks on whatever stopped them, and quickly decides whether it’s worth reading more. Your product has to win twice: first, to get picked up (or clicked). Then, to be chosen from those 2–3 items the customer is actually considering.

The Proximity Trap

There’s a paradox that hits nearly every company with a product on the market. The longer you’ve worked on it, the more you know about its strengths — the harder it becomes to see it from the perspective of someone encountering it for the first time. In psychology, this is called the “curse of knowledge” — you unconsciously assume the customer sees the same “revolutionary formula” you know from your production spreadsheets.

And this is where a communication problem begins that rarely gets addressed head-on. Inside the company, every department interprets the product’s situation differently — and often looks for the problem somewhere else. Sales blames the price, production blames distribution, and marketing blames quality. Everyone is partly right, but few connect these perspectives into a single coherent strategy designed to win those critical seconds at the shelf. That’s why packaging often ends up overloaded with information — because every department wanted to “add something,” forgetting to align it with the customer’s actual situation and needs.

Start With the Right Question

Instead of asking “Why aren’t sales growing?”, try asking a different question: “Do I know why customers choose my product — or why they choose the competition?” Not based on gut feelings, but on what actually happens at the physical and digital shelf.

Consumer buying behavior rarely lives where you’re looking for it — it usually sits at the intersection of how you see your product and how the customer sees it in the 11th second of contact.

If you want to see your product through the customer’s eyes and discover what’s really blocking its sales — check out the Odczarownik (The De-Enchanter). It’s our process that helps companies uncover where the real problem lies and delivers a concrete plan to solve it.



INNOVATIKA

Sources

Always on your mind? – investigating consideration sets…
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09593969.2024.2345122