Consumers can be a picky bunch. And every quarter, executives at publicly traded companies must find ways to provide coherent narratives about what they are doing and why.
As consumer confidence has weakened recently, business leaders attribute mediocre prospects to shoppers’ “picky” attitudes.
“This language is the latest trick executives are using to justify lackluster shopping,” said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester. “Choiceful is coded language for: sales or units are down,” she said, meaning consumers are either spending less at retailers or buying a smaller amount of product overall.
“Choiceful,” a term that became increasingly popular among executives a few years ago, has become even more ubiquitous in recent months. It was mentioned 70 times in 43 earnings calls in 2025, according to a FactSet analysis of S&P 1500 earnings calls. That was an increase from 36 mentions in 2024 and 27 in 2023.
Last May, for example, Rick Gomez, Target’s chief commercial officer, said that “consumers have been picky in their purchasing decisions.” In November, he used the term again, saying that “guests are picky, stretch their budgets and prioritize value.” Macy’s CEO Tony Spring discussed the “reality of a pickier consumer” during the company’s earnings call in December, using the term four times during the conference call. Executives at Mastercard, Walmart and Costco have also used the term in recent years.
Previously, the term was used by executives only occasionally and not always in the context of consumer behavior. A media executive used it in a 2011 op-ed to the New York Times regarding ad buying, and a Sears executive used it in a 2003 interview with the Times to refer to the company’s approach to sponsored entertainment.
The first known use dates back long before the days of corporate earnings conference calls and media buys: Edmund Spenser used it in an epic poem in 1591, in which he wrote, “His picky sense of euerie change darts.”
But in recent years, choiceful has come with a new dynamic, Ms. Kodali said: As companies struggled to maintain their pricing power, they charged more for their products, and consumers began buying fewer units overall. In other words, shoppers often spent the same – or more – while buying less. While this wasn’t the end of the world for retailers (many saw rising profits even as overall sales fell), it does provide some explanation.
“Even if you are doing well, you have to manage the investors,” Ms. Kodali said. “When you’re an executive at a public company, you’re constantly looking for justifications.”