Value for money shows three times the sentiment impact of any other factor in e-commerce, according to research analysing nearly seven million customer reviews across 600,000+ merchants representing $80 billion in GMV.
The finding, from Judge.me’s State of Consumer Trust 2025 report, challenges conventional assumptions about what drives customer satisfaction, as well as where merchants should invest their time and money.
“We’ve spent ten years building a platform that captures authentic customer voices at scale,” said Peter-Jan “PJ” Celis, Founder and CEO of Judge.me.
“Opening our dataset to reveal these patterns is how we serve merchants – by showing them what millions of customers are actually saying, not what surveys claim matters. This research helps merchants make smarter decisions about where to invest.”
Key insights from the report:
Value for money dominates all other drivers. Whether customers believe a product justified its cost shows 3× the sentiment impact of the next strongest factor. This outweighs product quality, service excellence, and delivery performance – making perceived value the single most important lever for merchants.
Delivery needs to be “good enough” – not exceptional. Product excellence generates nearly twice the sentiment lift of delivery improvements (0.77 vs 0.38 impact coefficient). However, delivery functions as a veto: pairing high-quality products with poor delivery drops sentiment 15%. Once delivery crosses a 3.75/5 threshold, additional logistics investment yields diminishing returns.
Price complaints signal broken expectations, not high prices. Price mentions appear 4.5× more frequently in negative reviews than positive ones, yet price sentiment drops only 0.5/5 points between the groups. Customers use “too expensive” as shorthand for unmet expectations – late delivery, difficult returns, or product disappointment – not actual cost concerns. Discounting rarely addresses the underlying issue.
Billing errors cause 40% more damage than returns problems. Though appearing in less than 0.3% of reviews, billing mistakes trigger perceptions of incompetence that apologies cannot resolve. Meanwhile, difficult returns generate 8× more discussion in negative reviews – effort, not outcome, shapes customer memory.
“This isn’t about being cheaper or faster,” added Fabrizio Assabese, Chief Growth Officer. “Customers are asking one question: was it worth it? That reframes where and how merchants compete.”
The full report, including category-specific benchmarks and methodology, is available at https://judge.me/blog/state-of-consumer-trust-2025.
About the Report
The State of Consumer Trust 2025 analyzed seven million verified customer reviews from May through September 2025, spanning 100+ countries and multiple product categories including furniture, electronics, fashion, food & beverage, and health & beauty. The research employed Hybrid sentiment analysis (70% BERT, 30% rule-based) with linear regression modelling. May–September 2025.
