A friend's word still carries the most weight with holiday shoppers. But a close second is something brands rarely offer on their own: an honest account of a product's flaws.

Some 41.9% of consumers said a trusted friend's or family member's recommendation made them feel confident in their last holiday purchase, according to a new survey of 1,001 US adults by EMARKETER and Reddit.

• Right behind that, 26.0% pointed to an honest discussion of a product's downsides alongside its strengths, ahead of expert reviews (18.7%) and influencer endorsements (12.6%). Shoppers are less interested in being sold to than in watching someone work through the tradeoffs.

That patience shows up in how long people wait before buying. Some 43.5% of consumers said they now spend more time researching purchases than they did two years ago, and more than a quarter said they lean harder on recommendations from people in similar situations, according to the survey.

Marketers used to think about the purchase funnel as narrowing toward checkout. For high-consideration holiday purchases, it's closer to a jury deliberation. Only 10.9% of shoppers said they'd trust an online community alone, per the survey. Most want corroboration across several sources before they'll commit, layering search, reviews, and word of mouth until the picture holds up.

Reddit's specific pull comes from what it allows people to say. Nearly three-quarters of consumers agreed that anonymity makes people more willing to share their real experiences, and a similar share said they trust a thread more when it mixes praise with criticism. When shoppers described what they value in a product thread, specific, real-world experience and visible disagreement between commenters ranked well above simple approval in the survey. A detailed argument between multiple people, in other words, persuades more than a single glowing endorsement.

None of this means influencer marketing has lost its footing. Trust in influencers has mostly held steady rather than declined, with a slim majority of consumers saying they trust them the same or more than a year ago.

But that trust doesn't convert cleanly into purchase confidence. Just 12.6% said their last confident holiday purchase traced back to a creator recommendation, well behind brand familiarity and price. Influencers are good at putting a product on someone's radar. Closing the sale increasingly happens somewhere else, in a thread where strangers argue about whether the product held up.

AI is now part of that argument. Nearly a quarter of consumers said they use AI tools to research purchases more than they did two years ago, and a separate March 2026 Horizon survey found 60% of AI users willing to share their purchase history with an AI shopping agent for better recommendations. Even so, close to half of monthly social media, LLM, and ecommerce users said they go back and verify AI recommendations on Reddit, and Reddit users trust the platform roughly twice as much as they trust LLMs for a final purchase call, according to 2026 Reddit data.

"Shoppers value both LLMs and social search, so I think the two will complement each other," said our analyst Minda Smiley. "People ultimately value human perspectives, especially for expensive or high-stakes purchases."

That leaves marketers with an uncomfortable but workable brief: Stop trying to control the conversation and start showing up inside it credibly. Smiley pointed to one model, a brand hosting a recurring AMA with a genuine expert, giving consumers a place to press on real questions.

"Brands should also reconsider who they're putting forth to engage in discussions," she said. "People will quickly be skeptical of someone in a marketing, advertising, or public relations role."

Read the full report.