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Understand why shoppers buy – and what truly drives their decisions
Knowing what shoppers buy is only half the story. Real commercial advantage comes from understanding why they choose one product, brand, or retailer over another – in the moment, in context, and across time.
Why2Buy is YouGov’s shopper insights solution designed to uncover the motivations, triggers, and trade-offs behind purchase behavior. By combining purchase data with targeted shopper surveys, Why2Buy helps brands and retailers move beyond assumptions to understand what drives choice, loyalty, and growth.
Whether you’re shaping strategy, optimizing performance, or evaluating innovation, Why2Buy connects real behavior with real motivation – so decisions are grounded in how people really shop.
One solution. Multiple ways to answer your business questions.
YouGov Why2Buy is built as a flexible framework, with different survey types designed to address distinct shopper and commercial challenges – from long-term category dynamics to in-the-moment purchase decisions. Browse some of the survey types we offer below:
Why2Buy Spark
Capture real shopper motivations while the moment is still fresh.
Some insights lose value the longer you wait. Why2Buy Spark is a purchase-triggered survey approach that connects with shoppers shortly after a purchase, capturing context, emotion, and decision drivers while recall is still vivid.
Spark is designed to reveal the sparks behind each decision – the shelf cue, offer, habit, impulse, or need state that tipped the balance – before hindsight rewrites the story.
Best for:
- Understanding real purchase decisions
- Mapping influential touchpoints
- Linking purchases to real-life occasions
- Evaluating new products in real use
Category Purchase Drivers
Understand what truly drives category performance.
Category Purchase Drivers focuses on the factors that motivate shoppers to buy a category in a specific store, what shapes category loyalty for the store, and which category management measures need to be prioritized to drive growth.
This survey type helps teams identify which category dimensions need improvement for enhancing customer loyalty, how they vary by retailer or shopper type, and where opportunities for differentiation exist.
Best for:
- Category strategy and planning
- Identifying loyalty drivers
- Understanding retailer and channel differences
- Prioritizing growth levers within a category
Product Edge
Reveal how your product performs in the real world.
Product Edge deep-dives into the product experience itself – uncovering which attributes truly drive satisfaction, better product experience or higher spend.
By linking post-purchase feedback to actual buying behavior, Product Edge shows how your product performs versus competitors, and where expectations are met or missed across different shopper segments.
Best for:
- Product performance and benchmarking
- Understanding drivers of satisfaction and loyalty
- Optimizing propositions and claims
- Supporting innovation and renovation decisions
Non-buyers
Discover what holds shoppers back from your brand or category.
Complete the ‘why’ as well as the ‘why not’ behind the buy with the Why2Buy Non-buyers survey approach. Reveal barriers, perceptions, and unmet needs that prevent shoppers from making a purchase.
Survey non-buyers in our panel to identify which barriers matter most across different shopper segments and retailers, and where the greatest opportunities lie to convert non-buyers into buyers.
Best for:
- Identifying barriers to purchase
- Comparing attitudes and needs of your non-buyers vs. buyers
- Prioritizing barriers with the highest conversion potential
- Understanding which levers are relevant for which target groups
Featured content
Real brands, real results
True insight means going below the surface. Explore how leading brands use Why2Buy to enhance their understanding of shopper behavior – combining purchase data with usage, attitudes, and needs.
The data provided by YouGov plays an important role in our client presentations. It not only offers valuable support alongside market figures, but also provides real insight into consumer behavior. These insights truly make the difference and help identify growth opportunities.
Kim van den Bergh, Trade Marketeer Vion Food Group
