Consumers go direct to Amazon over search engines

London - A growing number of consumers now go directly to Amazon when they are shopping for products online, according to a Survata study commissioned by BloomReach. The survey revealed that 44 percent of US consumers go straight to Amazon when searching for a product, bypassing traditional search engines.

The report found that just over one-third, 34 percent, of shoppers turn to search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing to start their online retail experience, while 21 percent rely on specific retailers’ websites.

The BloomReach study, which surveyed 2,000 consumers, found that shoppers headed to Amazon over search engines to track down their online purchases because of the sites ability to personalise the experience. Consumers added, by a two-to-one margin that they didn’t understand why their favourite retailers don’t offer the same kind of personalised experience that the big search engines do.

Nearly nine in 10 of consumers said that they are most likely to buy from a virtual store that intuitively predicts their shopping intent and 75 percent of consumers feel no online retailer is better than Amazon at offering the right recommendations or purchasing suggestions.

BloomReach head of marketing and partnerships, Joelle Kaufman, said: “Amazon has turned a slow-bleed of search engines' and retailers' e-commerce importance into a gushing wound.

"Search engines like Google have done their part by making product discovery and search intuitive, convenient and seamless; but if retailers want to slow Amazon's dominance, then they must integrate technology that creates frictionless experiences for their customers across channels.”