Shoppers don't just tolerate screens in the grocery store. In the right spot, they prefer them.

That's the core finding from Grocery TV's In-Store Shopper Perception Report, which surveyed 1,018 US grocery shoppers in March 2026 on their attitudes toward in-store retail media. The results draw a clear line between formats that fit naturally into a shopping trip and formats that fight it. That line determines whether a screen earns goodwill or generates friction, and it's the difference retailers need to understand before they build out their networks.

Placement decides acceptance

Placement, more than any other factor, decides how shoppers respond.

Entrance, checkout, app, deli, and pharmacy screens all cleared 84% favorability, landing in Grocery TV's "no brainer" tier, according to the report. Shelf talkers, shelf blades, and cooler screens fell under 72%, the report's "extreme caution" zone, with cooler screens scoring the lowest of any format tested at 58.9%.

The pattern behind that split is dwell time. Shoppers are already standing still at the pharmacy, the deli counter, and checkout, so a screen there fills time they'd otherwise spend staring at a shelf.

Screens that replace something shoppers already expect to see, like a checkout sign or an entrance display, read as an upgrade rather than an intrusion.

Formats that get in the way of the trip do the opposite. Shelf blades and shelf talkers sit inside the aisle itself, competing for the same few feet of space as the product. Shoppers said as much: One called the digital shelf blade an addition "to the chaos" of an already crowded aisle, according to the report. When a screen blocks the product or slows down the task at hand, the report found it costs the retailer more goodwill than it buys in attention.

Content has to match the moment

Content matters almost as much as placement.

• Promotions rank as the most-wanted content type at 51.5%, ahead of product information, recipes, and ideas, according to the report.
• Personalized offers based on past purchases rank last, at 27.8%, the least-preferred content type.

In a physical space where shoppers are already standing in front of the product, one-to-one targeting reads as unnecessary. Regional, seasonal, and contextually relevant creative does more work than individual targeting ever could in this setting.

That contextual relevance carries real commercial weight. End caps that show ads for the products surrounding them hit 84.2% favorability, more than 5 percentage points ahead of end caps running unrelated ads at 79.0%, according to the report.

• Eighty-six percent of shoppers say contextually relevant ads on end caps are important to them.
• Shoppers are 2.5 times more likely to consider a brand when its in-store ad matches the environment around it, according to the report.

Applying that principle costs little. A promotional message that acknowledges the season, or a display placed near the products it's advertising, moves shoppers more than a completely new creative concept would.

The purchase impact runs deep

The purchase data underlines why placement decisions carry stakes beyond customer experience.

• Sixty-two percent of shoppers have bought something directly after seeing it advertised on an in-store screen, and 37% say in-store advertising has helped them discover a product they wouldn't have noticed otherwise, according to the report.
• In-store signage now ranks as the top channel where shoppers learn about sales, promotions, and new products, ahead of store app notifications, print circulars, and retailer websites, per the report.

Nearly a third of shoppers walk in without a list at all, and those who make an in-store discovery convert at nearly double the rate of shoppers who discover a product online, according to the report.

The effect doesn't stop at the advertised product. Grocery TV's sales lift studies found a national personal care brand generated a 15% lift for the advertised item, plus a 12% lift across complementary products and an 8% lift across its full portfolio, according to the report. A separate consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand saw a 20% lift in oral care sales and a 19% lift across home and personal care, alongside a 15% halo across both advertised categories.

For retailers building out a retail media network, the report's guidance is to sequence the rollout by risk. Start with entrance, checkout, and pharmacy, the zones that combine high favorability with low disruption to the shopping experience. Treat higher-friction formats like cooler screens and smart carts as placements that need testing against a specific store layout before wider deployment.

For brands, the incentive runs the other way: Show up across the zones that reach different shoppers at different moments, and make sure the creative running in each one earns its spot by fitting the trip the shopper is already on.

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