By Retail Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
Every journey in life takes its own twists, much like the “path to purchase,” which maps a customer’s trip from spotting a product to finally and buying it. It starts with awareness (the moment a product pops onto a shopper’s radar), moving into consideration (Googling, comparing, and debating), finally landing in the intent zone, where a shopper has basically made up their mind. From there, it’s a straight “path” to purchasing an item, assuming nothing derails the process along the way.
The origins of the term “path to purchase”: While the term grew organically out of marketing and consumer behavior research, the idea behind “path to purchase” can be traced back to marketer E. St. Elmo Lewis’s AIDA framework, which stands for awareness, interest, desire, and action. In the mid-20th century, retailers started looking at the journey from exposure to purchase as a linear process. Eventually, with the advent of e-commerce and social media, “path to purchase” became a standard industry term expanding into a more nonlinear, multitouch customer journey.
Path to purchase in context: An August 2025 Retail Brew story described a 4,700% surge in “traffic from generative AI-powered links to retail websites.” Another August 2025 article also noted that “50% of Gen Z actually discover new products through friends, family, or colleagues, while 46% find them browsing in stores.”
