I think brand matters more than ever. It’s anecdotal, but let me give you a few examples of how my purchasing habits have become, and I assume that I used to buy things pretty much like everyone else.
Pants, one of my co-workers recommended a brand of pants from a Danish store called shaping new tomorrow, they have two real stores and their own internet business. They are the only pants I buy now, because they fit my needs. I used to buy pants at various places, but these guys really hit the nail on what I need, and as such their brand is immensely important to my pants buying.
Blood Bowl, I play it and I buy 3rd party miniatures. In the blood bowl community there is a lot of talk on who build the best 3rd party miniatures. I prefer willys miniatures and Greebo Games myself, and typically only buy their stuff. Again these are small mom and pop companies with their own little web shops that have become successful through their brands being associated with high quality.
T-shirts, I used to be a shirt guy. But a couple of years ago I started wearing t-shirts with prints. These are perhaps the best example because you can buy from so many places. And I did, I’ve bought t-shirts from about twenty different shops, but these days I mainly buy from qwertee because their fit suits my body best. Again their brand and the product I associate with it is important.
I used to buy things of amazon, and stores like it here in Denmark. But because it’s almost impossible, or at least takes a lot of time to associate sellers and quality on those platforms I almost never use them now. This was all anecdotal, but if I’m not alone in this, then brand matters quite a bit these days.