Consumer Trends 2025: A Strategic Roadmap For Shaping Your Business Success

Introduction

Staying updated on consumer trends 2025 is crucial for sellers, especially e-commerce merchants, to stay ahead in a competitive market. By understanding what shoppers expect, you can easily tailor marketing campaigns to meet their demands.

Recognizing the importance of this, we've researched and compiled the key consumer trends for 2025. By keeping up with these trends, we hope you'll be able to understand consumer behavior and launch your business effectively in the coming year.

Let’s dive into the details and explore the 9 important trends.

US Consumers Prefer Online Shopping

In the United States, the cost-of-living crisis is the biggest factor directly influencing consumer behavior. Shoppers have shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to online platforms, where they can track and compare prices before making a purchase. According to Statista’s 2024 report on online shopping behavior, US consumers buy a wide range of products from retail platforms and online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart. During major holidays, they also prefer purchasing gifts from e-commerce sites such as Etsy, Fetch, and Temu.

AI-assisted Shopping

AI assistance is also an essential part of e-commerce trends 2025, andsellers should focus on optimizing customer experience. Based on Statista's analysis, most consumers in the Western market are comfortable when their shopping experiences are assisted by AI.

In particular, 78% of Germans say that they would use AI features for shopping, while the number of Americans is 58%. With e-commerce businesses, AI becomes the go-to assistant to help consumers find the best deals or get personalized product recommendations. In particular, price comparison is one of the most popular 2025 consumer trends that customers prefer to use with AI. Although the demand for AI support increases considerably, consumers still want human interactions.

Inflation Impact on Spending Habits

Despite being stable for many years, inflation is still higher than before COVID-19. And with the inflation rate in 2023 being 3.40%, the US consumer behavior is also affected greatly. In this nation, people are adopting various strategies to save money, such as driving less, shopping online, seeking lower-priced stores, and purchasing items only during sales.

Product categories like apparel, footwear, household goods, and dining out are particularly affected by rising inflation. Additionally, wholesale prices now often surpass retail ones, and shipping costs have surged since the COVID-19 pandemic. Merchants are expected to continue facing these challenges in 2025.

Sustainability As A Core Value

For many recent years, sustainability has been evaluated as one of the priorities that decide consumers' purchasing decisions. Along with eco-friendly products, customers also expect that their favorite brand will provide some visible steps to support the environment. As the report by Forrester, 24% of the US participating in their research would like to understand more about their purchases' impact on the environment.

In the print-on-demand market, sellers can deliver this value by choosing sustainable materials like organic cotton, wood, or eco-friendly packaging. As merchants want to create custom branding for their packages, eco-friendly features are also an essential part that they should focus on.

Along with developing environmentally friendly products, merchants can take consideration of launching marketing campaigns with messages highlighting green initiatives like carbon-neutral shipping or waste reduction practices.

The meaningful campaigns are appreciated as a win-win for both businesses and the planet because they can captivate more customers as well as build trust and loyalty.

Rising Health and Wellness Awareness

In some recent years, health and wellness have also become important factors that affect consumers' purchasing decisions. Don't think that consumers just focus on cuisine or functional food. This consumer trend 2025 can extend to products that promote physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

In the print-on-demand market, merchants can make creative products by flexibly combining these values, such as fitness-themed apparel, mindfulness journals, or eco-friendly water bottles.

By early developing benefits or wellness-oriented designs to resonate with health-conscious buyers, sellers will have more opportunities to captivate in 2025. Additionally, businesses that emphasize mental health awareness, stress reduction, or self-care in their branding can strengthen connections with this growing consumer segment.

Personalization To Optimize Customer Experience

Personalization has become a cornerstone of exceptional customer experience. Both global retail sites and marketing teams have made personalization their top priority to attract customers. And in terms of personalized experiences, AI is changing the game because of the excellent ability of product recommendations based on customers' behaviors.

Beyond the personalized experiences of marketing campaigns, consumers increasingly seek products that feel unique and tailored to their preferences. In the print-on-demand market, this means offering customization options such as names, dates, photos, or designs that connect their feelings.

By enabling customers to create one-of-a-kind products, businesses can foster deeper emotional connections and enhance satisfaction. Leveraging AI-driven tools for personalized recommendations and showcasing popular customization trends can further improve customer engagement, driving repeat purchases and brand loyalty.

Mobile-First Experiences

Based on Oberlo's report, mobile commerce growth tends to increase steadily throughout the year because people tend to spend more time on mobile devices. In the US alone, the amount of time spent on mobile devices every day by consumers has increased from 225 minutes in 2019 to 279 minutes in 2024. In only five years, this growth marks a 24% increase.

Therefore, global mobile commerce revenues are predicted to reach $2.07 trillion in 2025, which covers 57% of e-commerce revenue. Furthermore, 85% of shoppers in the United States prefer to use mobile phones for shopping because of faster loading speed, easy navigation, and secure mobile payment, as Gauss reports.

Additionally, almost all online shopping platforms integrate with social media apps for direct purchasing to capitalize on mobile trends, drive engagement, and boost conversions.

Social Commerce Trends

As Emarketer, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are the three leading social channels on which US adults prefer to make direct purchases. This number is still predicted to rise and in 2025, social commerce is still a growing trend that can help sellers increase revenue greatly. Along with Facebook and Instagram, TikTok Shop is also a potential channel that print-on-demand merchants should not ignore because of shoppable entertainment features.

In reality, people use TikTok not only for watching entertainment videos but also for researching and reviewing products. According to TikTok, 61% of its users have engaged in e-commerce behaviors on the platform. That's the reason why TikTok Shop is evaluated to be the 2025 consumer trend that no print-on-demand seller wants to miss out on.

Subscriptions And Loyalty Programs

Together with personalized customer experience, subscriptions, and loyalty programs are reshaping how businesses engage with consumers. By offering recurring purchase options, print-on-demand sellers can ensure steady revenue while building customer retention. With shoppers, here are also the global consumer trends that many shoppers prefer to receive from their favorite brands to save more.

Loyalty programs further enhance engagement, with 75% of consumers stating they are more likely to buy from brands that reward their loyalty (Forbes). With e-commerce, specifically print-on-demand businesses, implementing strategies like discounts for repeat purchases or exclusive perks for subscribers can significantly boost customer lifetime value and foster brand advocacy.

Conclusion

The consumer trends 2025 presents both challenges and opportunities for print-on-demand businesses. From personalization and sustainability to mobile-first strategies and loyalty programs, staying ahead requires aligning with evolving customer expectations. By leveraging these trends, POD sellers can create meaningful connections, enhance customer experiences, and drive long-term growth. As the market becomes increasingly competitive, embracing innovation and focusing on consumer-centric strategies will be essential for thriving in the years ahead.