Brand loyalty is measurable in repeat purchases, share of wallet, personal connection, and willingness to stay after a difficult experience. The available research shows that loyalty is substantial but fragile: 59% of shoppers surveyed by Adobe said they were loyal to a specific brand, while 57% of loyal shoppers in the same report churned because of a bad experience. Quality, value, service, privacy, authenticity, and relevant rewards all influence whether a relationship lasts.
Table of contents
- Brand loyalty at a glance
- What inspires loyalty
- Loyalty by industry and spending
- Why loyal customers leave
- Personal connection, authenticity, and influence
- Generational and demographic differences
- Loyalty programs and business investment
Brand loyalty at a glance
Adobe’s State of Loyalty in Consumer Industries report found that 59% of shoppers surveyed said they were loyal to a specific brand. More than 76% said they trusted their preferred brand and hoped for its success. These figures describe a relationship that goes beyond a single transaction: customers can identify with a preferred company and actively want it to do well.
Loyalty was not evenly distributed across sectors. Travel and hospitality had the highest loyalty rate in the Adobe report, at 67% of guests. Retail had the lowest, at 53% of shoppers. The gap shows why brand loyalty statistics need context. A customer may be loyal in a category where switching is inconvenient or where experiences accumulate over time, while remaining more willing to compare options in a crowded retail environment.
KPMG’s The truth about customer loyalty found that 51% of consumers in food and beverages said they were loyal to at least one brand. In the same sector, 38% said they were loyal to any one store that sold the products. This distinction separates product loyalty from store loyalty: a shopper may seek a particular item but still change retailers.
Clutch’s 2025 brand loyalty report found that 98% of consumers reported repeat purchases. More than half also said their brand loyalty had shifted. Repeat buying therefore does not necessarily mean loyalty is permanent; customers can return regularly while their preferences remain open to change.
What inspires loyalty
Product performance remains the leading loyalty signal in KPMG’s research. Seventy-four percent of consumers said product quality inspires loyalty. Value for money followed at 66%, while 56% said customer service inspires loyalty. Sustainability was described as very or extremely important to loyalty by 37% of consumers.
These results suggest a practical order of priorities for anyone building a personal brand or customer-facing business:
- Make the core offer dependable enough that quality is obvious.
- Make the value exchange clear rather than relying on attention alone.
- Treat service as part of the product experience.
- Communicate sustainability in a way that supports, rather than substitutes for, quality and value.
Personal connection is also a major loyalty driver. Six out of ten consumers in KPMG’s research said they were loyal because they felt a personal connection to a company. Forty percent of consumers globally said they were likely to feel a strong personal connection with the companies to which they were most loyal.
PwC’s Customer loyalty and business growth research found a related behavioral pattern among loyalty-program members. Among Gen Z consumers who belonged to a loyalty program, 81% browsed at their favored brand or retail site, compared with 69% overall. Eighty-two percent of those Gen Z members bought from their favored brand or retail site, compared with 73% overall. Membership was associated with both more browsing and more buying in the reported groups.
Loyalty by industry and spending
Adobe measured loyalty through the share of a customer’s spending directed to a preferred brand. The percentages below are not a universal ranking of all brands; they are category-level findings from that report.
| Category | Share of wallet associated with loyalty |
|---|---|
| Cruise lines | 78% |
| Household and personal care | 69% |
| Electronics goods | 67% |
| Airlines | 67% |
| Food and beverage goods | 58% |
| Apparel and fashion | 44% |
| Hotels | 42% |
| Apparel retail | 38% |
| Rental cars | 36% |
| Dining | 27% |
The highest reported share was cruise lines, at 78%. Household and personal care followed at 69%, while electronics goods and airlines each reached 67%. At the lower end, dining reached 27%, rental cars 36%, and apparel retail 38%. Hotels were at 42%, and apparel and fashion at 44%.
Adobe also reported how loyal shoppers allocated their budgets in 2022. Grocery loyal shoppers spent 71% of their budget with their preferred brand. Household and personal care reached 69%, electronics 67%, food and beverage 57%, mass merchandise 52%, apparel and fashion 44%, specialty retail 41%, and apparel 38%.
The two Adobe measures should not be treated as interchangeable. One describes a share of wallet associated with loyalty in a category, while the other reports how loyal shoppers spent their budgets in 2022. Keeping the measurement language intact avoids presenting category estimates as a single universal loyalty score.
Why loyal customers leave
Loyalty can be lost through an experience that contradicts what the customer expects. Adobe reported that loyal shoppers churned because of a bad experience 62% of the time in retail, 56% in travel and hospitality, and 52% in consumer goods. Across the report, loyal shoppers churned after an average of 2.4 bad experiences, and 57% churned because of a bad experience.
Trying another brand was another reason for churn. Retail loyal shoppers churned 23% of the time to try a new brand. The comparable figures were 21% in travel and hospitality and about one-third in consumer goods. A new option does not have to be objectively better to become attractive; novelty itself can be part of the switching decision.
Customers also left when another brand offered a better experience. Adobe reported this reason for 15% of retail churn, 23% of travel and hospitality churn, and 17% of consumer goods churn. The figures point to a competitive lesson: retaining loyalty depends not only on preventing errors but also on making the experience meaningfully strong.
PwC’s 2025 Customer Experience Survey found that 52% of consumers stopped using or buying from a brand because of a bad experience with its products or services. Another 29% stopped because of poor customer experience online or in person. Sitecore’s Brand Authenticity Report reported that 66% of Americans stopped shopping with a brand and never returned after a poor experience.
Price pressure can also test store loyalty. In RRD’s Consumers Frustrated with Rising Prices survey, 55% of shoppers said they would stay loyal to the store they shopped at most often, while 45% were open to changing stores for greater savings. Loyalty and price sensitivity can coexist: a customer may prefer a store but still switch when the financial difference becomes important.
Personal connection, authenticity, and influence
Sitecore reported that 70% of Americans craved deeper, more personal connections with brands. Yet only one-third or fewer of U.S. consumers described themselves as very loyal to their favorite brand. The combination suggests a gap between the connection customers want and the strength of loyalty they currently feel.
KPMG found that personal connection varied sharply by market. In India, 74% of consumers said they were loyal because they felt a personal connection to a company. Globally, 40% said they were likely to feel a strong personal connection with the companies to which they were most loyal.
Influence also varied geographically. KPMG reported that 40% of consumers in mainland China said their loyalty was affected by favorite-influencer endorsements, compared with 23% overall. Influencer recommendations generated US$15.5 billion in revenue in mainland China in 2018, according to the same source. That revenue figure is historical and should be read as a 2018 measurement, not a current forecast.
For a personal brand, the implication is not simply to seek endorsements. The data supports a more specific approach: build recognizable expertise, create a credible personal connection, and make recommendations or partnerships fit the audience’s existing trust. Authenticity can invite attention, but consistent quality and service determine whether attention becomes repeat behavior.
Generational and demographic differences
PwC reported that men were more brand-loyal than women in its measured group, at 67% versus 59%. This is a reported survey difference, not a rule that applies to every audience or category.
RRD found that 61% of baby boomers said they would stay loyal to the store they shopped at most often. Among affluent consumers, the figure was 64%. Millennials showed stronger switching openness: 50% said they were open to changing stores for greater savings.
Privacy is part of the loyalty decision as well. RRD reported that 39% of consumers said data privacy was influencing their decision-making, up 19 points from the prior year. Because the source describes a year-over-year change without providing the underlying earlier percentage here, the result should be read as a reported increase of 19 percentage points, not as a calculated current share beyond the stated 39%.
The results reinforce the importance of audience-specific positioning. A message that focuses on savings may be especially relevant to customers who are open to changing stores, while trust and familiarity may matter more to customers who say they will stay with their usual store. Segmentation should follow measured behavior rather than assumptions about age or gender.
Loyalty programs and business investment
Digital access is an important part of modern loyalty programs. EY’s Loyalty Market Study 2025 found that more than 80% of customers were willing to download a mobile app for loyalty programs. Customers aged 18–34 were most likely to sign up for a program on a brand’s mobile app, at 37%, compared with 30% across all ages.
Program participation still has friction. EY reported that 35% of customers said being in the loyalty program last year was a top challenge, down from 45% the year before. The change is historical between the periods covered by the study; it does not mean all programs have removed participation barriers.
Businesses are continuing to invest. More than 60% of executives increased their loyalty budgets in their most recent planning cycle, according to PwC’s Customer loyalty and business growth. In PwC’s 2023 executive survey, 61% of executives said customer loyalty had improved since before the pandemic, while 20% of consumers said their loyalty had improved over the same comparison.
The same PwC survey found that 91% of executives said they needed to offer more rewards or benefits in loyalty programs. More rewards may help, but the broader evidence points to a wider requirement: rewards work best when the underlying product, service, value, privacy practices, and relationship are credible.
Bond’s loyalty report provides scale for understanding how loyalty programs are studied. Its dataset includes more than 35 million data points across more than 400 programs and 20-plus industries. The report has tracked customer loyalty for 15 years, measures more than 100 attributes, and identifies 33 unique drivers of loyalty. These are characteristics of Bond’s research program, not a single consumer-percentage finding.
For personal brands and career-focused businesses, the central lesson is measurable and practical. Trust must be earned through repeated delivery, loyalty must be protected through reliable experiences, and connection must be made useful to the audience. The strongest relationships are not created by a slogan alone; they are reinforced each time a customer finds the promised quality, value, and care.