With tariffs raising costs and inflation reshaping household budgets, consumers are scrutinizing every purchase more carefully. According to Retail Brew, 82% of consumers say economic concerns are impacting their spending habits, and 44% are buying fewer non-essentials as a result.
That means shoppers are more reluctant to buy—and more likely to bounce at the first sign of friction. In this climate, poor PDP content isn’t just a missed opportunity. It’s a preventable revenue leak.
CPG brands and shoppers alike are grappling with a complex mix of challenges: escalating tariffs, persistent inflation, and a notable decline in consumer confidence. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 86.0 in April 2025, marking its lowest point since May 2020 and the fifth consecutive monthly decline. Similarly, the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment fell to 52.2 in April, a 32.4% year-over-year decline.
This downturn in consumer sentiment is closely tied to recent trade policies. The imposition of sweeping U.S. tariffs—10% on all imports and up to 145% on Chinese-made goods—has led to increased prices for a wide range of consumer products.
As a result, consumers are becoming more cautious with their spending, prioritizing essential goods and seeking better value in their purchases. A March 2025 Retail Brew survey reported that 1 in 2 consumers are making fewer discretionary purchases, while 65% said rising prices are making them more selective when shopping online.
At the same time, more than 70% of ecommerce businesses expect increased operational costs due to the new tariff environment, and many are passing those costs on to consumers. That’s compounding broader inflationary pressures and intensifying competition for consumer dollars.
Together, these forces are creating a new ecommerce reality: higher prices, lower consumer confidence, and a shrinking margin for error on the digital shelf. Brands must now justify every price tag—and earn every conversion—with visuals that signal trust, quality, and relevance immediately.
In an era of tighter budgets and growing performance pressure, a weak PDP impression doesn’t just lose a sale—it wastes your most expensive traffic.
For ecommerce brands, this shift means that every interaction with a potential customer is more critical than ever. PDPs must not only provide accurate information but also instill confidence and convey value instantly. In this environment, subpar product visuals can deter hesitant shoppers, leading to lost sales and diminished return on investment in marketing efforts.
Retail media remains one of the fastest-growing digital ad channels, but it’s also under scrutiny. As tariffs and inflation eat into margins, many brands are being forced to slash their media spend or reallocate budgets more surgically—all while proving ROI. According to eMarketer, even as retail media investment grows in aggregate, nearly half of retail advertisers are reducing campaign scope or frequency to offset rising costs and protect profitability.
That means every click must count.
Driving paid traffic to an underperforming PDP—where weak imagery fails to capture attention or build trust—is like pouring fuel on a leaking funnel. You paid to win that click. If the shopper bounces due to bland visuals, mismatched expectations, or a stronger private label option, you’re funding your competitors’ growth instead.
Compounding the challenge is a more skeptical shopper. Consumers aren’t just spending less; they’re demanding more from every purchase. With discretionary budgets shrinking, shoppers are more likely to choose lower-priced alternatives, defer purchases, or favor private label brands that signal simplicity or value. For national brands, this makes visual storytelling more important than ever.
You’re not just competing on price anymore. You’re competing on perception.
And when a customer lands on your PDP, it’s your brand imagery—not your bullet points—that shapes that perception. Does your lead image showcase product quality? Do your secondary images clearly communicate benefits, lifestyle fit, and differentiation? If not, you’ve likely lost the sale before your copy even loads.
This is why image measurement and predictive visual analytics are becoming mission critical. By understanding which visuals resonate with target shoppers, brands can increase the return on their retail media investments and convert reluctant buyers with emotionally resonant, visually compelling PDPs.
Enter visual AI. Unlike traditional A/B testing or intuition-based creative decisions, visual AI offers a data-backed, scalable way to identify what imagery works best for specific audiences.
Vizit’s platform leverages predictive visual analytics to simulate how shoppers from different demographics will perceive a product image. By analyzing over a trillion visual cues that influence consumer behavior, Vizit can score and rank product images based on their likelihood to convert.
This means brands no longer have to rely on gut instinct. They can confidently:
The proof is in the results. Brands using Vizit have reported conversion lifts of up to 30%, 10x faster image selection workflows, and over $100,000 in additional weekly revenue from optimized PDPs.
In a time when every operational cost is rising and consumer caution is at an all-time high, underperforming product images represent an avoidable tax on your ecommerce business.
Digital shelf optimization is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a necessity. The brands that win today are those that treat every PDP impression like gold. With tools like Vizit’s image analytics platform, ecommerce teams can stop guessing and start converting—delivering the right image, in the right order, to the right shopper.
Want to see how your PDP images stack up? Request a demo and discover the smarter way to optimize your visual content.
Vizit is the first—and only—way to predict, measure, optimize, and monitor your ecommerce content’s effectiveness so you can deliver the right content for consumer audiences at scale.
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