Consumers Choose Marketplaces Over Retail Websites: Survey

Digital shoppers are increasingly starting their product searches on retail marketplace platforms, which allow third-party merchants to sell goods, before looking on an individual retailer's website, according to a report released on Tuesday by Amazon Inc and Pymnts.com.

According to the survey, 64 percent of respondents said they start by searching for a product on a marketplace, followed by their favourite websites, search engines and social media. The survey polled more than 2,000 online shoppers in July.

A majority of those polled cited trust in a retailer as the most important factor in determining where they ultimately make a purchase. The other factors included promotions, rewards, good buying experience on a website in the past, delivery and shipping.

"The number one determining factor on whether a consumer chose to make a purchase online was trust, not selection or price," Patrick Gauthier, vice president of Amazon Payments, said on the sidelines of the R2 Retail Reinvention Summit in Chicago.

The survey also showed that consumers were twice as likely to both accept and adopt a new retail payment product from Amazon than from Apple Inc.

Third-party marketplace business accounts for about 40 percent of total Amazon site sales.

© Thomson Reuters 2015