Research
Voice-of-Customer Studies for DTC Categories
Public research grounded in real conversations. We analyze thousands of unprompted comments in the communities where buyers actually talk, then show what people say, believe, trust, and complain about, in their own words. These are open samples of the work we do for brands.
Supplement Stackers vs Minimalists: What Makes People Cut Back?
Most people keep their routine to 1-3 products, and when they cut the whole thing, it's usually money, hassle or doubt rather than a bad reaction.
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Free Samples at Checkout: Do Shoppers Treat Them as Part of the Order?
Free samples change when people order, and mostly they make people wait. When a promised sample goes missing, most shoppers say the brand owed it to them.
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Persimmon Soap and 'Old Person Smell': What Is It Really Fixing?
The most common reason people give for starting is a smell they do not have yet. About 73% of users with a verdict say it worked, and 4 of 6 burn reports come from use on the genitals.
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Why Shoppers Refuse Package Protection at Checkout
Of 343 comments about a checkout protection fee, 9 said it costs too much. A third say they are already covered, and the thing they name is a card chargeback.
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Luxury Bodycare: What Does the Premium Buy?
Scent is about 63% of the reasons people give for paying more. The experience of using it is about 7% and how it looks in the bathroom about 6%. The most mentioned brand in the whole corpus is Dove.
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Discount Conditioning: Are Brands Training Shoppers to Wait?
Deliberately abandoning a cart to trigger a discount is about 1% of the tactics shoppers describe. Waiting for a sale date they can already predict is about 53%, and sellers raising the base price to fund the discount close the loop.
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Most People Reaching for a Wellness Patch Are Not Doing It for Convenience
The top reason for choosing a patch is medical at 37%, ahead of forgetting pills at 17%. The two objections to the format, the mechanism and the seller, are the same size and meet in only 3% of comments.
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Mielle Customers Cannot Agree on What Changed After P&G
Five competing explanations for the same complaint, none above 32%, and the most common one blames the customer's own hair. Of comments naming a concern, 91% raise ownership, formula or identity and 9% raise price.
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Older and Younger Shoppers Walk Into Stores for the Same Reason
Two generations describe the physical store in opposite terms, then give the same single reason for entering one: 20% of older coded mentions and 22% of younger say you cannot judge it through a screen.
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Liquid Death's Fans Left Over the Sweetener, Not the Marketing
Of people describing a change in buying behavior, 66% name the formula, taste, can size or price. 8% name the marketing. 44% of responses are a switch to a named rival.
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Customers Do Not Unsubscribe, They Press Spam
Only 22% of coded responses to unwanted marketing messaging use the unsubscribe link. 27% mark it as spam. Frequency drives 60% of exits, relevance 6%.
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Wearable Owners Do Not Switch Brands, They Route Around the Subscription
42% of responses to an unwanted wearable fee keep the hardware and use a cheaper app, against 22% who switch device. The objection is the shutdown, not the price.
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When a Return Goes Wrong, Shoppers Call the Bank Before They Call You
64% of responses to a refused return are chargebacks, not complaints. Store credit is the most resented outcome, and only 3% say a return policy is why they keep buying.
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Why Shoppers Block AI Recommendations Instead of Verifying Them
59% of coded responses to a distrusted AI answer are about hiding it, only 2% about checking it. And the reviews people would verify against are under suspicion too.
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Are Compression Boots Worth It? What Athletes Say About Recovery, Price and Real-World Use
58% of owners describe the benefit as a feeling rather than a result, half the people who call it a placebo use it anyway, and the loudest price argument is that a cheaper pair does the same thing.
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Why Consumers Quit Melatonin: Grogginess, Vivid Dreams and the Search for Better Sleep Support
Grogginess and vivid dreams are 42% of quit reasons, and the biggest single reason is the belief that melatonin is a hormone. Almost nobody quits because it failed to work, and magnesium is where they go next.
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Whole-Body Deodorant: Where People Actually Use It, and Why It Lets Them Down
People use it well past the underarms, mostly on the groin, under the breasts, and feet. But 40% of complaints are irritation, the next is the product's own sour-milk smell, and most still expect it to stop sweat.
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Pause, Skip or Cancel: What DTC Subscribers Actually Want When Products Start Piling Up
Most churn is price and quality, the stuff flexibility can't fix. But accumulation and bad cadence are the churn a pause could prevent, and the pause button is the feature people trust least.
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Fibermaxxing: What People Actually Reach For to Get More Fiber
Whole food still wins over any single supplement. The top complaint is taste and texture, not bloating, and Metamucil's sugar content is what pushes people to a cheaper generic.
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"Sephora Kids" and Children's Skincare: What Parents Actually Approve, Reject and Buy
Parents run a hierarchy, not a blanket yes or no. Cleanser and SPF pass without a second thought. Retinol and anti-aging get rejected on any brand, at any price.
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Do You Really Need Electrolytes? What 2,500+ Consumers Say
The category sells sport. Close to 9 in 10 real use cases are something else: GLP-1 meds, fasting, POTS, and heat. And half the room is arguing it's just salt.
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Creatine for Women Over 40: What 7,500+ Customers Actually Say
The category sells muscle. Women over 40 buy it for brain fog and energy in perimenopause. The biggest barrier is the fear of bloating. Here is what the language shows.
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GLP-1 Drugs: What 8,000+ Real Users Say About Taking Them
Sentiment skews positive, but the loudest theme is not weight loss. It is relief from constant food noise. Plus side effects, the "easy way out" stigma, and the cost.
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Hypochlorous Acid Spray: What 3,500+ Customers Actually Say
The category sells it as acne care. The people using it describe a calm-it-down skin rescue for redness, breakouts, and post-gym flares. Here is what the language shows.
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More studies coming soon.