These lines examine the impact of small content creators on consumer decisions by analyzing the relationship between social trust, the cost of obtaining information, and purchasing behavior. The opening of “Q” stores in Riyadh serves as a case study for understanding how advertising influence is shifting from reliance on an advertiser’s fame to drawing on experiences that are closer to consumers’ everyday lives. The study draws on concepts from information economics, social learning, and return on marketing spend, alongside recent academic research. It concludes that follower count alone cannot explain economic influence, and that the success of this model depends on the credibility of the information, the relevance of the audience, the product’s actual value, and the company’s ability to turn temporary interest into sustained demand.

When ordinary shoppers became a form of advertising

In October 2026, the opening of “Q” store branches in Riyadh attracted attention on social media, amid price competition among several retailers.

In a report published on October 21, Al-Eqtisadiah observed consumers visiting the new store and comparing its prices with those at other retailers. Some shoppers said that social media advertising, along with prices and quality, were among the factors that prompted them to visit.

But the most interesting aspect is not the store opening itself.

In a post on X, Abdullah Al-Gharabi offered an analysis of the outreach strategy accompanying “Q”’s opening, noting its reliance on small accounts rather than on celebrities with millions of followers alone.

According to this account, videos spread showing visits to the store and discussing prices, products, and personal impressions.

Although there is not enough independent data to assess the campaign’s scale and results, it raises an important economic question:

Why might an experience shared by someone followed by a few thousand people influence a purchasing decision more than an ad featuring a celebrity followed by millions?

Answering this requires moving beyond studying advertising as a way to attract attention and looking at consumers themselves: How do they gather information? Whom do they trust? And how do they decide whether a product is worth what they will pay for it?

Consumers are looking for information, not just products

Suppose a family in Riyadh is considering trying a new store that offers groceries at low prices.

Before making a decision, the family might ask several questions:

Are the prices really lower? Are the products good? Is the store worth the extra travel? Do the deals cover most of their needs, or only a limited selection?

These questions touch on a key aspect of Economics of Information.

Consumers do not always know everything they need to know before making a purchase. As a result, they spend some of their time, effort, and money to obtain information that can help them make a decision.

Economists call this burden the “search cost.”

When consumers visit several stores to compare prices, read product reviews, or ask others about their experiences, they incur a cost—even if they do not pay directly for the information.

Economist Phillip Nelson examined this issue in his celebrated study Information and Consumer Behavior, published in 1970 in the Journal of Political Economy.

Nelson distinguished between characteristics that can be verified before purchase and those that only become clear after trying or using a product.

This idea helps explain the economic value of consumer-generated content.

A video filmed by someone inside a new store might reveal the prices of some goods, package sizes, how products are displayed, how crowded the store is, and what the shopping experience is like.

Consumers can therefore get information they would otherwise need to visit the store themselves to obtain.

But that does not mean the video offers a complete picture of the store. Its creator may choose to show the best prices, the most interesting products, or only a limited part of their experience.

Accordingly, the economic value of content is not determined by its view count, but by how much accurate information it adds to help consumers make better decisions.

Why do we trust people who are like us?

On October 20, 2026, writer Dan Koe published an article titled:

The Influencer is Dead. The Age of Experience is Here.

In other words: “The influencer era is over... and the era of experience has begun.”

Koe argues that audiences have become more interested in people who share their circumstances and interests than in content creators who showcase lifestyles that most followers cannot access.

He suggests that people may find it more useful to learn from someone like themselves who is a step or two ahead, rather than from someone whose experience is entirely different from their own.

This is an interpretive argument made by the writer, not a scientific finding proving that celebrities have lost their influence. But it offers a way to understand the relationship between social similarity and consumer influence.

Consider two scenarios.

In the first, a celebrity appears in a store and talks about low prices without showing a clear comparison or explaining their experience in detail.

In the second, someone followed by residents of the same neighborhood posts a video comparing the prices of five products they usually buy and explains what they liked and disliked.

The second scenario may be more useful to consumers, even though the creator is less famous.

That is because viewers can compare the creator’s circumstances with their own and verify some of the information being shared.

This is where the concept of source credibility comes in: the extent to which recipients consider the person providing the information trustworthy and suitably knowledgeable about the subject.

Credibility does not automatically come from having few followers, nor is it automatically absent among celebrities.

A major influencer may have genuine expertise and the trust of their audience, while a small-account creator may post a misleading ad.

But when social similarity combines with expertise and credibility, content is better able to reduce consumer doubts.

That is the economic point: advertising does not create value for consumers simply by reaching them. It does so when it helps them evaluate the options available to them.

How does video reach translate into consumer behavior?

Understanding the influence of small accounts requires understanding another phenomenon: social learning.

Social learning means that people draw on others’ experiences and decisions when making their own.

If a consumer knows nothing about a new store, then sees several accounts of people who have visited it, their expectations about prices, quality, and whether a visit is worthwhile may change.

The more closely those experiences match their needs, the more relevant the information becomes to their decision.

But learning from others is different from imitating them without independent evaluation.

In a 1992 study, economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer, and Ivo Welch discussed the concept of informational cascades.

This phenomenon occurs when individuals make decisions based on what others have done, to the point that they may ignore their own information.

This concept can be applied to the opening of a new store.

Someone watches a video about the store and decides to visit. They then post about their experience, which others see, prompting some of them to visit as well.

As this process repeats, interest may grow—not because of a single centralized ad, but because information spreads among different social groups.

However, this process can lead to two possible outcomes.

The first is that these experiences provide useful information about real prices and good products, helping people discover a better shopping option.

The second is that repeated videos become an apparent sign of the store’s quality, even if the information shown is similar or insufficient.

Consumers may assume that frequent discussion of a product means it is the best, when the content’s reach may instead be the result of an organized marketing campaign or a temporary wave of interest.

That is why a high volume of posts does not necessarily mean there are many independent testimonials.

The distinction matters: spreading information may increase the likelihood that people try a product, but it does not prove that the information itself is accurate.

Are small influencers more cost-effective?

It is not enough to say that small accounts enjoy greater trust; companies need to know whether using them delivers better economic results.

Here, empirical studies offer more precise evidence than commonly held impressions.

In a study titled Revenue Generation Through Influencer Marketing, published in the Journal of Marketing, researchers analyzed marketing data that included 2,808 paid influencer posts associated with the sale of around 1.88 million products, as well as three field studies involving 319 paid influencers.

The researchers found that, in the cases studied, working with influencers who had fewer followers generated a higher return on investment than working with larger influencers.

In one dataset, return on marketing spend was about 18, compared with 5 for large influencers, according to the metric used in the study.

This does not mean that small influencers always generate higher total sales, but rather that revenue relative to cost may be higher.

To understand this, suppose a company has two advertising options.

The first gives it broad reach but requires paying the advertiser a high fee.

The second relies on several small accounts, at a lower total cost and with an audience more interested in the product.

The first option may generate higher sales in total value, but it may be less efficient if the cost of acquiring those sales is high.

That is why economists focus on return on marketing spend, which compares the revenue attributed to a campaign with its cost.

But revenue is not profit. The cost of goods sold, operations, discounts, and other expenses must also be taken into account to determine actual profitability.

More importantly, the findings of that study cannot be applied directly to “Q,” because they were based on different markets, companies, and campaigns.

Academic studies also do not agree that a particular influencer size is best in every circumstance.

A 2025 review of 71 research papers found that small and mid-sized influencers were more effective at generating engagement, while larger influencers had a greater impact on purchase intent in the studies reviewed.

It also showed that results vary depending on the product, audience, platform, and nature of the message.

This leads to an important conclusion:

The most cost-effective influencer is not necessarily the one with the largest or smallest audience, but the one who achieves the desired objective at an appropriate cost.

The “Q” case: Does the ad sell the experience or the price?

To understand “Q”’s experience from an economic perspective, we must consider the nature of the product being promoted alongside the reach of the content.

Retail stores differ from many other consumer products because shoppers can compare the prices of many of their goods with alternatives available in the market.

In “Q”’s case, the purchasing decision is not just about the location, but about the value of the shopping basket consumers can get there.

In an analysis published in September 2026, Yamamah Insights examined the business model of discount retailers, explaining that their ability to offer low prices may be linked to efficient purchasing, rapid inventory turnover, and reduced waste—not just lower profit margins.

But what does that have to do with marketing through small accounts?

The connection is that advertising may persuade consumers to try the store, while its actual economic value determines whether they return.

Suppose a consumer sees a video about a low price on rice and decides to visit the store.

Once there, they may not buy only rice; they might also add oil, cleaning products, milk, and other items.

Now the question is: Did they actually save money?

The rice may be cheap, while some other products are priced similarly to those elsewhere or even higher.

The consumer may also find themselves buying quantities they did not need because of the deals.

That is why measuring actual savings requires comparing identical products by type, weight, and size, and calculating the total shopping basket—not just focusing on the products featured in promotional videos.

This was also noted in Al-Eqtisadiah’s field coverage of competition among Riyadh retailers.

From a consumer economics perspective, choosing a store is not just about posted prices.

Consumers also consider other costs, such as travel time, crowds, product availability, quality, and the ability to buy everything they need in one place.

This allows us to distinguish between two different economic functions:

Advertising helps reduce the cost of discovering a store, while the actual shopping experience determines whether the store is worth visiting again.

If the videos attract large numbers of consumers but they do not find the value they expected, the campaign’s impact may quickly fade.

But if their expectations are met, some visitors may become repeat customers and share their experiences with other consumers.

The first experience can then become a potential source of sustained demand.

Has trust become an economic commodity?

In an economy increasingly reliant on digital platforms, trust has become an important factor in the cost of reaching consumers.

Companies need not only to tell customers that a product exists, but also to convince them that the information provided about it is worth relying on.

Genuine experiences can help achieve this, especially when they include verifiable details, clear comparisons, and both positive and negative observations.

But a problem arises when it becomes difficult to distinguish personal experience from paid advertising.

If an account holder receives money or some other benefit for promoting a product and does not disclose this to viewers, consumers may treat the message as an independent recommendation.

This affects their ability to evaluate the information properly.

In a previous statement, the Saudi Ministry of Commerce affirmed that failing to disclose paid advertising content is a violation of the rules governing online advertising, alongside misleading ads and false claims.

From an economic perspective, disclosure does more than ensure regulatory compliance; it gives consumers information about the incentives that may have influenced the advertiser’s opinion.

Knowing that a video is paid helps viewers put the recommendation in the right context.

This does not mean that paid advertising is necessarily dishonest, or that unpaid experiences are always accurate.

Rather, transparency about the relationship between the advertiser and the company helps consumers assess the message’s credibility.

This creates an important paradox.

Companies may turn to small accounts because they seem more relatable and spontaneous, but repeatedly turning them into advertising channels may weaken the very quality that made them appealing in the first place.

Trust can lower the cost of acquiring customers, but it will not last if a company relies on concealing the commercial nature of its content.

How can we tell whether the strategy really worked?

Despite the importance of all this, a fundamental problem remains when analyzing the “Q” case.

The spread of videos alone is not enough to prove that the strategy was economically successful.

To reach a scientific conclusion, we must distinguish between three levels.

The first is audience reach, which can be measured by the number of people who saw the content.

The second is response, such as searching for the store or visiting one of its branches.

The third, and most important economically, is the additional purchases generated by the campaign, their acquisition cost, and the likelihood that they will be repeated.

Suppose a store spends 100,000 riyals on a marketing campaign and its sales increase by one million riyals during the campaign.

We cannot immediately conclude that all of that million resulted from the advertising.

Some of the sales may be related to the store’s opening itself, price promotions, its location, or public interest in trying a new place.

This is a well-known problem in economic evaluation: determining the relationship between cause and effect.

One way to reach a conclusion is to design a field study comparing two groups of similar branches or areas.

The first group is exposed to a campaign relying on small accounts, while the second group is not exposed to the same campaign during the comparison period.

Researchers can then measure differences in visits, sales, new customers, and return rates, while accounting for differences in prices, promotions, and other conditions.

A consumer survey could also ask where respondents first heard about the store, how much they trust the content, what prompted them to visit, and whether their actual experience matched their expectations.

This approach would make it possible to test measurable hypotheses, including whether content shared by people socially close to the audience can build trust and lower the cost of discovering the store.

But testing this hypothesis requires data; the spread of videos or personal impressions alone is not enough.

The end of celebrity—or the beginning of a new economy of trust?

The “Q” case does not prove that the celebrity era is over, nor does it prove that small accounts are more effective in all marketing campaigns.

But it provides a useful case for understanding an important shift in consumer economics.

Influence over purchasing decisions is no longer tied solely to audience size. It also depends on how relevant the information is to consumers’ needs, how much they trust its source, and what it costs them to obtain it.

This shift reveals a direct relationship between information economics and consumer behavior.

Consumers who receive more accurate information relevant to their needs can compare alternatives more effectively. They may make a decision that saves them money or time, or reduces the likelihood of choosing an unsuitable product.

Conversely, the spread of inaccurate or commercially directed content without clear disclosure may lead to less efficient decisions—even when consumers seem to be relying on the experiences of ordinary people.

Academic studies show that small influencers can generate high marketing returns in certain circumstances, but their success is not determined by follower count. It depends on the nature of their relationship with the audience, the type of product, the quality of the information, and the cost of the campaign.

In retail, however, it is not enough for advertising to succeed in attracting consumers to the store for the first time.

The real economic test begins after the visit: Were the prices competitive? Did consumers find the products they needed? Did the experience provide enough value to bring them back without another ad?

Content may be able to buy consumers’ attention, but genuine value is what earns their loyalty.

This is the key lesson the “Q” case offers for the study of consumer economics: fame may increase a message’s reach, and trust may encourage consumers to try something, but lasting demand ultimately depends on the benefits consumers receive in return for what they pay.