The Art of Shopping: Love, Friendship, and 2025 Shopping Habits
06 Feb 2025

The Art of Shopping: Love, Friendship, and 2025 Shopping Habits

As Valentine’s Day approaches, romance is in the air! So is the love of shopping. According to Provoke Insights’ Winter 2025 Trends Report, shopping isn’t just a solo activity. For many, it’s a social experience shaped by relationships, optimism, and lifestyle. Our survey of 1,500 Americans, reflecting the U.S. population, reveals that 23% frequently shop with friends and family—especially parents, city dwellers, and those with an optimistic outlook on life.

So, what does shopping look like in 2025 for singles versus those in relationships? And how do their lifestyles shape what (and how) they buy?

Singles: Shopping Trends as a Social and Active Experience

The average single American is 37 years old, and 75% are optimistic about the future. Shopping is often an extension of an active lifestyle—one that includes exercising outdoors (45%), going to bars (16%), hitting the gym (28%), dancing (23%), and attending concerts (16%).

Also, singles tend to shop with friends and family, using these moments to bond over shared interests. They lean on their personal networks for purchasing advice, valuing product experiences before making decisions. Singles are likely seeking products that fit their active and social routines—whether it’s the best workout gear, trendy night-out fashion, or the latest must-have for their next concert or dance class.

Married Consumers: Shopping Trends for Elevated Experiences and the Home

Married individuals in the study skew slightly older, with an average age of 46. Those in a relationship have an even higher level of optimism. 79% say they are optimistic about the future. Their shopping behaviors reflect a blend of indulgence and practicality. They still prioritize fitness (43% exercise outdoors). Also, they are more likely to invest in experiences that elevate their home and lifestyle.

Compared to singles, married consumers are more likely to dine at high-end restaurants (31%), bake (48%), craft (20%), and take on home improvement projects (26%).

For them, shopping isn’t just about personal indulgence. It’s also about enhancing their home life, hosting, and creating experiences for their families. They rely on recommendations from their networks to ensure they are purchasing high-quality products that last, from kitchen appliances to furniture.

The Role of Love, Connections and Shopping Habits

Whether single or coupled, today’s shoppers are not making decisions in isolation. Personal networks remain the most trusted source of product information, with shoppers turning to loved ones for insights on quality and experience. For brands, this means word-of-mouth marketing is more powerful than ever, and fostering trust through authentic customer reviews and testimonials is essential.

As Valentine’s Day reminds us of the importance of connection, Provoke Insights’ findings reinforce that shopping—like love—is a shared experience. Whether browsing for the perfect date night outfit, the best kitchen gadget for a new recipe, or the latest fitness gear, shoppers are relying on their relationships to guide their choices.

Key Takeaways for About Shopping Habits

• Lean into social shopping experiences. Whether through in-store events or online referral programs, brands that encourage shared shopping moments can boost engagement.

• Prioritize peer recommendations. Customers trust friends and family over ads—make sure your brand encourages reviews, testimonials, and social sharing.

• Tailor marketing to lifestyle differences. Singles are more likely to seek out active and social experiences, while married consumers prioritize home and dining-related purchases.

This Valentine’s season, let’s celebrate not just romantic relationships but the friendships, family bonds, and social experiences that shape the way we shop. So invite a friend or love one over, pour a glass of wine, and hop on Amazon together.

Interested in reading more on market research and shopping habits? Check out our other blogs here. 

Are you interested in our market research capabilities? 

Conducting Research in a Third World Country
13 Dec 2018

Conducting Research in a Third World Country

Written by: Alannah Griffin 
Case Study: Conducting In-person Research in Vietnam 

Ever thought about conducting market research in a third world country? Certainly, it's not the easiest undertaking. And often, in order to do so, you need to think outside the box.

It takes a lot of effort, analysis, and critical thinking to curate any methodology. However, imagine trying to figure out how to research the threat of technology for motorbike taxi drivers in Vietnam.

Vietnam: Market Research in the Third World

In Vietnam, the primary mode of transport in cities is by motorbike. A common occupation for men is to be a motorbike taxi driver/xe ôm driver. A lot of xe ôm drivers’ livelihoods are now under threat with the onset of modern technology. Apps that use location intelligence are emerging and providing more cost-efficient, safer, and quicker rides for customers. In this day and age, on-demand service is a high priority for customers. The use of GPS and location intelligence is forcing traditional xe ôm drivers out of the market.

There are many different ways to conduct this research. As a result, when taking everything into account for this particular research study, the methodology consisted of qualitative methods to provide an in-depth assessment.

That is to say, the three qualitative research methods selected were:

  • Semi-structured interviews
  • Informal conversational interviews, and
  • Participant observation

In conclusion, we found that if drivers want to continue in the profession of motorbike taxi drivers, they must partner with the companies who have developed Apps using location intelligence. Therefore, if they do not do so, they will not satisfy customers, threatening their income source, and may be left behind.

Further, you must be thinking about what issues we ran into. So, what are common watch outs when conducting this type of research?

Having your interview guide well prepared and your target sample precisely defined before entering the field is essential to obtain the best and most accurate results.

Cultural issues.

A researcher needs to be prepared for situations where interviewees may be reserved towards them as a researcher due to the cross-cultural setting and their potential lack of trust.

Language barrier.

All interviewees who participated in the research discussed above were interviewed through Vietnamese. Therefore it was essential to have an interpreter to overcome the communication barrier during the qualitative research. The quality of the interpretation has an effect on the research results. Therefore it is vital to ensure that the interpreter is qualified and vetted for the assignment at hand.

Reasons Why Working with a Professional Will be Helpful

Research can be extremely time-consuming, especially with a large sample size. Often, when conducting research in a third world country, there are variables present that are beyond your control. Certainly, this is where a market research firm becomes a valuable asset with the knowledge and expertise to overcome these barriers.

Guide/Survey writing is a challenging task – if your company wishes to undertake surveys or interviews, you will need an experienced researcher to aid you in this writing process.
Market researchers have the experience to know how many interviews would be necessary to achieve data saturation. It is vital that you have guidance from a professional to get the recommended sample sizes for your study.

Market researchers identify key findings, themes, and conclusions. Their expertise in cleaning, analyzing, and ultimately making sense of data in order to produce more accurate, actionable results, and tell a story with the findings is invaluable.

Check out some of our most recent posts from our strategy and advertising research blog here:

  1. Blockchain & the Markest Research Industry
  2. I'm Just Not That Into You: Exclusivity or Bad Marketing?
  3. Is Your Research Stuck in the 1980s: Update Your Brand Tracker!
  4. Market Research Doesn't Need to Be Boring: Improve Data Visualization
  5. Tips For Building Brand Strategy for a Successful Brand
  6. What's the Difference Between Quantitative and Qualitative?

Sign up for our newsletters here!

Follow our social media accounts:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/provokeinsights

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provokeinsights/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/provoke-insights

Keep on the lookout for more blog posts from us!

Why We Love Advertising Research
10 May 2018

Why We Love Advertising Research

Written by: Carly Fink

I grew up in the 1980s, and cable TV was seen as a premium service. We had an antenna with only seven TV channels. There was no internet, social media, or smartphones. Ads were mostly aired or shown on television, radio, print, or out of home (e.g. billboards). If you had a fun jingle or a catchy slogan your ad would be seen and hopefully remembered. Everyone was using predominantly the same media channels. As a result, someone my age often remembers the commercials they grew up with… From Mikey from Life Cereal to the Anti-Drug Campaign – “This is Your Brain on Drugs”.

However, the advertising landscape today is much more diverse. On average, a person sees over 10,000 ads a day. A cable subscriber has access to an average of 200 TV channels. To complicate the media landscape, millennials are cutting the cable cord and watching streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu on their TVs and computers instead.

People do not sit and exclusively watch TV or videos anymore. They are often using their phone, tablets, and computers while watching programming which allows them to easily tune out commercials.

It’s not only streaming services that have complicated advertising. I love observing people and seeing how walking around in public has evolved. Now, you often see people taking smaller steps so that they can walk and access their phone at the same time. Or how many times have you waited on a long line at a retailer and not taken out your phone? This results in a major loss of eyes on out-of-home advertising, store’s window advertising and point-of-purchase advertising.

This makes it extremely challenging for a brand to stand out from the crowd. As a result, advertising research becomes more important than ever. Research provides so many opportunities for your brand to become more relevant, memorable, unique, and important to your consumer base. It is a smart way to get ahead of your competitors. From conducting secondary research to understanding trends to segmentation research to advertising tracking, there are multiple ways to be stand out and smarter about your advertising.

Socially Awkward Companies Get More Action
10 Sep 2015

Socially Awkward Companies Get More Action

Socially Awkward Companies Are Succeeding

A recent survey by Provoke Insights found that the majority (82%) of small businesses are using social media. Yet, more than half (54%) of these businesses state that these marketing efforts are not paying off. Through analyzing the survey responses, Provoke Insights pinpointed five key areas to help small businesses create more effective social media initiatives.

1) Write out your strategy.

Thirty-three percent (33%) of small businesses say they need help to develop a social media program. Most importantly, companies should determine their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the social media landscape. Above all, companies need to understand the gaps in their current plan before they reach out for outside help. Therefore, although this isn’t a full social media plan, businesses need to go in the right direction to develop a more comprehensive strategy.

2) Stand out from the crowd.

A social media presence is more than just having Facebook and LinkedIn pages. However, most small businesses are solely using those channels (77%, 55% respectively). Interestingly, only 45% are using Twitter and even less are using Youtube (33%), Google+ (31%), blogs (18%), Instagram (16%), Pinterest (14%), Vine (9%) and Slideshare (5%). However, these additional channels can provide businesses opportunities to stand out from their competitors who don’t utilize these mediums. In addition, using social media sites such as Google+ and Slideshare helps improve organic search.

3) Invest smartly.

Only 60% of small businesses have utilized paid social media advertising. However, of those who have used these channels, most (77%) have only used Facebook advertising. Meanwhile, it is important to test other social media channels, such as LinkedIn or Twitter, to determine if they have a higher engagement rate. Also, by continually examining paid social media tactics, you can determine which messages resonate most with your audience, as well as which sites produce the best leads.

4) Know what your numbers are saying.

Tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights are free tools to measure customer engagement. But only 25% of small businesses are analyzing their website data, and even less (19%) are measuring their social media metrics.

However, website analytics can show you what drives consumers to your site, including if your social media efforts improve ROI. Furthermore, you can learn more about your target audience, engagement rate, and the number of people who view your posts by only using Facebook Insights. Thus, companies can learn a lot from their numbers.

Al Matesic, the owner of the digital advertising agency SWAMP80, states; “It surprises me how many companies only care about having a presence online without tracking if it works or not. Whenever I develop a website and social media pages for small businesses, I make sure I teach my clients about how to read metrics so they can be successful online.”

5) Create stronger relationships.

60% percent of small businesses believe that social media helps keep them in touch with their customers. That is to say, keeping in touch on social provides businesses an opportunity to further engage with their customers by giving advice, improved customer service, and new product offerings.

Methodology

Provoke Insights conducted an online survey of 211 small business employees who are involved in the company’s marketing initiatives. “Small business” is defined as between $100k to $20 million in revenues. We distributed the survey between February 27th- 28th, 2014, using Survey Sampling B2B Panel.

Check out some of our most recent posts from our strategy and advertising research blog here:

  1. Blockchain & the Markest Research Industry
  2. I’m Just Not That Into You: Exclusivity or Bad Marketing?
  3. Is Your Research Stuck in the 1980s: Update Your Brand Tracker!
  4. Market Research Doesn’t Need to Be Boring: Improve Data Visualization
  5. Tips For Building Brand Strategy for a Successful Brand
  6. What’s the Difference Between Quantitative and Qualitative?

Sign up for our newsletters here!

Follow our social media accounts:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/provokeinsights

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provokeinsights/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/provoke-insights

Keep on the lookout for more blog posts from us!

Four Ways to Better Understand Your Consumer
10 Sep 2015

Four Ways to Better Understand Your Consumer

Knowing your customer should be your top priority. You waste time and money when you cannot pinpoint who you customers actually are.  If you don’t know who your target audience is, how can you reach them effectively?  How do you know how much they are willing to pay for your product?  What do they think about your product and your industry overall? What would enhance their loyalty and referral rates?

Use research that is already out there.  There is a lot of free research that is already out there.   Simply start with census.gov to understand your industry’s basic demographics.   Many times your local library may have access to business databases that you can utilize.  Also, you can learn more about what your customers and prospects are saying by simply using keyword searches on Facebook and Twitter.

Seek consultancies that conduct secondary research if you need more information about your target audience.   Agencies, like Provoke Insights, have extensive access to secondary databases.  They are able to digest and analyze several sources quickly to help answer your questions about your customers.

If your questions are not available from existing sources, primary research can be conducted. While more costly, a company can utilize this method to identify specific questions they may want to ask about their customers. Primary research allows you to learn very specific information about the customer such as demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and opinions of certain products or services.   It is also a great tool for testing marketing initiatives before prospects.

Use your website analytics.   Finally, besides the traditional research methods of learning about your audiences, there is so much that can be done with analytics to get a good grasp on your customers.  With website analytics, you can monitor where, when, and who visits the site.  Once you analyze and understand your website visitors more, you can learn to engage with them in ways that resonate.