The New Rules of Retail: How Intentional Shopper Behavior is Changing the Game

Written by Alicia Cleary | 03 Apr 2025

Grocery shopping is no longer a leisurely activity. Today’s shoppers are focused, efficient, and driven by purpose—with VideoMining’s nationwide Behavior Tracker™ revealing a 21% drop in units sold per trip and 5% less aisle exposure in grocery stores over the past five years . This seismic shift in consumer behavior means retailers and brands must adapt quickly or risk losing relevance. Here’s what you need to know—and how to respond.

Key Shopper Behavior Trends Defining 2025

1. The End of Aimless Aisle Browsing

Shoppers aren’t lingering. With 13 seconds to capture attention and nearly half of all center store shoppers abandoning searches if they can’t find products quickly, you face a shrinking window to inspire purchases, build baskets, and drive conversions.

2. Mission-Driven Shopping

Intentionality reigns: FMI recently reported 71% of Americans are concerned about the rising price of food from grocery stores, and that translates to more considerate purchasing patterns. Unplanned purchases are declining, reducing opportunities for impulse-driven basket building.

3. Shoppers Are Willing to Walk Away

As Forbes reported, “there’s one friction point that in-person retailers often overlook: the time and effort needed to find the product they are looking for.” VideoMining’s grocery shopper Behavior Tracker™ program found that 45% of center-store shoppers leave without buying anything if their search fails. Poor navigation and cluttered displays cost brands billions annually.

How to Your Adapt In-Store Merchandising:

To win in this era of hyper-intentionality, integrate smarter shoppability with these 4 strategies:

1. Immediate Product Visibility

Optimize in-store signage and aisle wayfinding for easier navigation and visual searching (e.g., “where is the organic peanut butter?”)
Use in-store heat maps to identify high traffic zones and areas of at-shelf confusion to combat leakage from frustrated shoppers

2. Micro-Targeted Messaging

Bring convenience to cross-aisle purchase affinities with at-shelf signage or digital shelf tags to encourage shoppers to traverse across multiple aisles.
Highlight pairing opportunities and cross-merchandising that support existing trip missions with logical basket partners.

3. Curated Cross Merchandising

Curate product groupings that reduce the need for longer cross-store journeys for those on specific mission-oriented trips with a logical selection of in-aisle cross-merchandising, making it easier for the shopper to build their basket without taking additional routes across the store.
Consider using destination zones to capture grocery shopper attention and inspire basket additions. Think, for example, about Target’s seasonal hub merchandising displays, which group categories for logical shopper occasions. Combine that with promotional signage or personalized shopping offers that incentivize cross-purchases, like sunscreen and beach snacks.

4. Rethink Front End Merchandising

As shoppers become less and less likely to traverse additional aisles, think differently about the points of connection you have to work with throughout the store. The Front End offers a last-stop opportunity to inspire basket building that should not be overlooked.

TIP: Did you know shoppers with kids in-tow are the least likely to actively shop the front end? Read more of VideoMining’s Front End research findings here.

Why This Matters for Your Bottom Line

Intentional shoppers aren’t just a trend—they’re the new norm. With 21% fewer items per grocery shopping trip and shrinking attention spans, the time is now to get to know how your shopper behaves in-store, and how you can leverage shopper behavioral science to more effectively connect with them. VideoMining’s suite of retail and CPG solutions offer unprecedented visibility to in store behaviors in real brick-and-mortar store settings. Want to learn more?

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