The latest survey from Swiftly lands at an oddly reassuring moment for anyone who still believes local retail isn’t finished just yet. Nearly 80% of shoppers say they trust their neighborhood grocery store more than national giants like Amazon or Walmart when it comes to fair, personalized deals, a result that quietly undercuts the long-running assumption that scale automatically wins trust. It’s an old-fashioned advantage—earned over years of familiar faces, predictable pricing, and a sense that someone on the other side of the counter actually notices—but it turns out that advantage still matters, maybe more than ever, as food prices continue to test household budgets.

A Gartner survey conducted in April and May 2024 revealed that only 52% of senior marketing leaders, including CMOs, were able to prove marketing’s value and receive credit for contributing to business outcomes. The survey highlighted that nearly half of CMOs feel that marketing is viewed as an expense rather than a strategic investment, with CFOs (40%) and CEOs (39%) being the most skeptical of marketing’s value. One of the key strategies for overcoming this challenge is adopting a long-term, holistic view of marketing’s impact, which has proven successful for 41% of leaders.