Designer Trust & Transparency Report 2026
Designers Shortlist 10 Products. Yours Probably Isn't One of Them.
- What makes it difficult to trust products online
- Which information gaps lead to early drop-off
- How digital friction affects shortlisting, pipeline, and revenue.
Download the Designer Trust & Transparency Report 2026
Download the Designer Trust & Transparency Report 2026
Once Found, Ruled Out Faster.
Online isn’t the research channel anymore. It’s the entire shopping floor.
98% of designers shop for products online. No longer are they browsing for inspiration, they are making buying decisions. They have a specific project, timeline, and a list of requirements and they expect your website to behave like the retail experiences they use every day.
The product sites that don’t do this, get cut fast.
This Isn’t Just Product Discovery. It’s Demand Capture.
The shortlist is smaller than you think.
68% of designers evaluate 10 or fewer products before they buy. This list is dictated largely by what designers can verify on a website the night before a client meeting.
Brands don’t get ruled out because their product is wrong. They get cut because the designer isn’t able to confirm it was the right fit in the time they had. And the brand never even finds out it was in the running.
The Gaps That Keep Showing Up
Across 783 designers, the same friction points eliminate products before a single sales conversation happens:
- 59% can’t trust product quality online. Without rich imagery, finish detail, and real-world context, the product is too risky.
- 51% say pricing isn’t transparent. Designers can’t advocate for a product if they can’t estimate the price.
- 43% can’t find inventory or lead times. On a deadline-driven project, a product with unknown availability is a risk the designer won’t take.
Hard to trust product quality online
Pricing isn’t transparent
Can’t find inventory or lead times
What's Blocking Your Conversions
Your traffic isn’t the problem. Your experience is.
If your analytics show strong sessions but no conversions, your problem is in the middle of the funnel, not the top. This is where designers decide whether to keep going or move on.
Most brands measure visibility. Few measure evaluability. But evaluability is what determines whether traffic becomes a sample request, a sales conversation, or a specification.
The good news is that it’s all fixable.
What Needs to Change
Product presentation needs to support faster, more confident decisions.
When the experience matches how designers actually evaluate options, products stay in the running. This report shows where current experiences fall short and what to adjust so products are easier to evaluate, shortlist, and purchase.
What Needs to Change
Product presentation needs to support faster, more confident decisions.
When the experience matches how designers actually evaluate options, products stay in the running. This report shows where current experiences fall short and what to adjust so products are easier to evaluate, shortlist, and purchase.
Turn Insight Into Pipeline
If your site is getting traffic but not turning into real opportunities, the issue isn’t visibility.
It comes down to how easy it is to evaluate what you offer.
That’s where we focus.
From search visibility to product page experience, the goal is to make it easier for the right audience to move forward with confidence.
Ready to Be Found by Your Customers?
We help your brand not only rank higher but also show up in front of your customers when it matters the most. Let’s talk about how our SEO or integrated SEM strategies can turn your website into a relentless client acquisition engine.
