From familiar to favourite: Understanding retail preference in Ireland

Irish consumers shop across a wide range of retailers, but favourite status is reserved for far fewer. EY Ireland’s Retail Performance Index 2026 explores what separates the retailers people use from those they choose first.

In brief

• Being well known is not the same as being preferred. Irish consumers regularly shop across a range of retailers, but reserve favourite status for a much smaller group.
• Preference is built across the whole customer experience. Trust, value, product offering, service and experience all influence which retailers customers choose first.
• The opportunity is to turn familiarity into first choice. Understanding why customers return, where they experience friction and what they value most can help retailers decide where to focus and invest.

Many Irish shoppers have a handful of shops that they visit regularly but the list of shops they actually look forward to visiting is shorter again.

EY’s Retail Performance Index has been tracking retailer satisfaction scores since 2021 in multiple markets. The survey was conducted in Ireland for the first time in 2026, surveying 1,500 consumers on their sentiments relating to 23 retailers, spanning six categories. It provides a granular view of retailer perception across 15 different elements of customer experience, as well as the overall positioning vs. competitors.

The new EY Ireland Retail Performance Index 2026 shows awareness levels above 90% for several major retail brands which is, regardless of any other data point, impressive. 90% awareness means that large numbers of consumers know these retailers, visit them, buy from them and return to them regularly. The brands and their campaigns are succeeding when it comes to the key metrics of reach and relevance. Brand familiarity of this magnitude typically results from years of investment.

The more compelling numbers appear when consumers are asked about their favourite retailers. At that point the field narrows.

Familiar names continue to be familiar, with shoppers visiting these stores regularly; however, favourite status is reserved for a select group of retailers. General shopping and occasional purchase can have many drivers. A venue might be in a convenient location, with the right product at a good price on a particular day. A shopping trip may be part of an established routine. The why is important but each of these, sometimes random, sometimes planned, factors creates value for retailers.

Favourite status reflects something more enduring. It suggests a retailer has become a first choice for a particular need or occasion.

Every Shopper Has a Shortlist

When we compare regular shoppers and favourite status, the figures become particularly interesting:

• One retailer attracts almost 70% visitation and a favourite score of 4%.
• Another shows 35% regular shoppers and a favourite score of 14%.
• A third shows 25% regular shoppers and a favourite score of 9%. 

These visitation, favourite and regular shopper numbers give real insight into the way people shop and consider shopping. Many retailers are widely known and widely used but favourite status is at an almost elite level.

The wider dataset points to the same pattern. Awareness exceeds 90% for multiple retailers and regular shopping spans many brands across the categories surveyed. Consumers are comfortable with including a range of venues and retailers in their shopping routines.  

Consider the weekly shop. Grocery shopping is the strongest example of how households will break up their household essentials across a range of venues and brands. The same behaviour can be seen in other categories where customers shop with multiple retailers at the same time. This is how most people shop in real life.  Consumers keep a shortlist of options and move between them depending on what’s on the list at any moment in time.

Favourite status is achieved when a retailer is most likely to be chosen, even when the customer has other options.

Through the research we can see that consumers who identify a retailer as a favourite consistently rate them more strongly across trust, value, product offering, service and experience. Essentially, this is a checklist for what these brands have to deliver on in order to reach that favourite status.

A look across categories

To create category-level favourability scores out of 100 from the data, retailer results were grouped by sector and assessed across three dimensions:

• Brand Strength, including trust, price perception, product offering and service
• Digital Experience, including online product discovery, content and engagement
• Offline Experience, covering in-store interactions and physical retail experience

These category favourability scores offer a strong insight into customer relationships:

What the category rankings tell us

The variation across categories suggests that becoming a customer’s favourite can happen for many reasons. These categories are very distinct when it comes to the type of shopping and the intent behind purchases, and will all have a different weight when it comes to consumers. The nature of, and intent behind, the shopping trip gives customers different opportunities to browse, seek advice, feel inspired or form relationships.

If we consider the 11-point gap between Home & Garden and Forecourt Convenience, we see this as significant, and it would be easy to view this gap as “good versus bad”; however, this is not the case. Depending on life stage, salary, and customer profile the value of each category will vary completely.  Spend, speed and research are going to be extremely different. The ranking is most useful when it prompts a question: what does each category offer the customer, and how effectively do its retailers deliver against that expectation?

Home & Garden ranks the highest. Purchases in this category are often made for a specific project, be that freshening up a room or overhauling a garden. This creates opportunities for retailers to support the purchase through inspiration and advice. There is also often an emotional driver to this type of purchase. Consider selecting a paint colour for a room or choosing plants for a garden – the customer is looking for guidance and inspiration from the retailer, whether that’s online or in a physical store.

Health, Beauty & Wellness also performs strongly. Here, confidence and trust may play a bigger role, with customers often seeking reassurance around suitability and effectiveness. This category spans both essential, health-driven purchases, and discretionary purchases that will, again, often have an emotional motivation.

Grocery provides an interesting contrast. Despite being one of the most frequent retail experiences any of us has, it does not top the favourability rankings. This is a strong illustration of the difference between usage and preference. Customers may shop regularly with several retailers while reserving favourite status for only a select few.

Forecourt Convenience serves a very different purpose for the customer, with speed and location often being the main considerations. Building preference can still be possible, but the drivers are likely to look different from categories where customers  spend more time researching and comparing options.

Interestingly, the footwear and clothing categories sit in the middle of the rankings. These categories cover both functional and discretionary purchases, with a range of influencing factors. While some purchases will be shaped by individual style and self-expression, others will prioritise reliability and quality. Customers often browse across multiple brands and retailers before making a purchase, which gives retailers more opportunities to influence preference through product range, inspiration, customer experience and ease. At the same time, consumers generally tend to frequent a relatively broad range of retailers simultaneously, demonstrating again that regular usage does not automatically make a retailer a favourite.

This chart shows that many retailers attract large numbers of shoppers, while favourite status remains distinct:

Mapping future growth potential

Many of the Irish retailers surveyed by EY are already on the map. They have strong brand visibility and are familiar to consumers and regularly used. The Retail Performance Index shows impressive awareness and engagement across multiple categories for Ireland's retail sector.

However, resting on brand familiarity laurels is not an option in a sector as fast moving as retail. Ongoing growth will mean businesses need to focus on three key areas.

Retailers that understand why customers return, what customers value and where customers experience friction are likely to be in the strongest position to achieve that preferred retailer status. Time spent measuring awareness, traffic and sales will always be part of brand reporting, but the Retail Performance Index suggests there is equal value to be found in understanding preference.

When AI steers the shopping cart

Shopping preference is increasingly being guided by AI with shopping journeys often beginning online. In EY Ireland's 2026 AI Sentiment Survey 69% of respondents, in the past 6 months, had encountered AI in customer interactions. Interestingly, at the same time, only 8% said they would trust an AI agent to purchase a product on their behalf. So, the advice is sought and possibly welcome, but consumers want to make up their own minds in the moment.

With a few exceptions, AI is now part of everyday shopping behaviour. As such, retailers should treat it as a central business issue, regularly reviewing how their products, services and brand appear in AI-generated results. Retailers need their AI strategy fully embedded into their customer digital and growth strategies, reflecting the growing role AI is playing in product discovery and purchasing decisions.

Striving for favourite status

Across the Retail Performance Index, consumers who identify a retailer as a favourite rate it more positively across trust, value, product offering, service and experience. The data suggest that favourite status is not earned through one factor alone. Instead, it is the result of a system involving multiple elements working together, from trust and value to service, experience and emotional connection.

Four considerations for retailers, with examples of global best practice:

• Functional foundations: The basics are non-negotiable. Availability, value, reliability, ease of purchase and service keep the retailer in contention and detract when they’re not there. While they won’t create favourite status in their own right, their absence will take the retailer out of contention. Harvey Norman Ireland’s Best Price Guarantee, which commits to matching or beating genuine competitors’ advertised prices, is a good example of how retailers can give customers a clear and tangible commitment on value.
• Trust foundations: Accuracy of claims; transparency around origin, provenance and traceability; security of data; and predictability around quality all contribute to trust. SuperValu provides a strong Irish example through its approach to food traceability. Its fresh meat is 100% Irish and traceable back to farms of origin, giving customers greater visibility over where the products they buy have come from.
• Distinctive value: Inspiration, expertise, recognition, enjoyment or a sense of belonging are emotional drivers that give shoppers a reason to prefer one retailer over another. Lidl Ireland’s long-standing partnership with the Ladies Gaelic Football Association is a good example of how a retailer can build a connection beyond the shopping experience, supporting women’s sport from local clubs through to the national game.
• Consistent reinforcement: When the customer experience is replicated consistently across channels, preference becomes easier to achieve, which could contribute to a retailer becoming the favourite or default choice. Apple's ability to deliver a recognisable experience across its stores, website, products and customer support demonstrates how consistency can reinforce customer expectations and strengthen brand preference over time.