Digital marketplaces continue to gain significant momentum in Australia, with 88% of shoppers buying from a digital marketplace in the past year, and 92% of consumers planning to shop on marketplaces like eBay, Amazon and Catch in the year ahead.
The findings were revealed as part of global ecommerce accelerator, Pattern’s fifth annual ‘Marketplace Consumer Trends Report – 2023,’ which researched Australian shoppers’ changing ecommerce habits and the latest digital marketplace trends.
“Digital marketplaces are this year on a continued growth path and are becoming increasingly accepted and adopted as a shopping channel of choice by Australian consumers,” said Merline McGregor, General Manager, Pattern Australia. “However, with cost of living pressures and an uncertain economic outlook, our report highlights how consumer behaviour is set to again evolve in the year ahead.”
Consumer Behaviour
Pattern research shows that 73% of consumers are set to spend more or the same online overall in 2023, and for the leading global digital marketplace Amazon specifically, 84% of consumers expected to spend more or the same on this platform in 2023.
“Given the rapid increases in the cost of living and interest rate pressures facing consumers in Australia, it could be expected that a majority of shoppers would be looking to reduce their ecommerce spend in the year ahead. However, our research found a large portion of consumers said they had no plans to change their shopping habits in 2023,” said Merline.
Not only are digital marketplaces attracting higher volumes of shoppers, but the demographic mix and way that shoppers use these channels is also evolving. High income earners are most likely to shop on Amazon today (36% vs 21% average), while eBay attracts larger volumes of male shoppers – with 69% of men purchasing from eBay vs 55% of females.
Marketplace Performance
Looking at the past year, 62% of consumers bought from eBay, with 65% planning to buy from the platform in 2023. Running just behind, 52% of consumers bought from Amazon over the past 12 months, with 59% intending to buy from Amazon this year. Amazon (with 43% of shoppers having access to Amazon Prime) was recorded as the second most visited marketplace, with an anticipated 12% increase in purchases in 2023 compared to last year.
In terms of website traffic, Amazon overtook eBay in average monthly website visits (58.3M Amazon visits vs 57.6M eBay visits), from December 2022 to February 2023, according to SimilarWeb data, with Catch trailing down the line at 9.9M visits over the same period.
Pattern’s research asked shoppers what they were likely to buy in 2023 and through which marketplace they were likely to make a purchase. These results indicated that:
- Amazon’s key shopper categories include Books & eBooks and Home & Kitchen products.
- eBay scored highest in Electronics & Computer Equipment, followed by Home & Kitchen.
- Catch saw an equal share in Clothing, Shoes & Accessories, Toys, Kids & Baby products and Home & Kitchen.
- Kogan consumers are looking for Electronics and Home & Kitchen products on the platform.
Research also showed that shoppers are most likely to visit a brand’s own D2C (direct-to-consumer) website when it comes to Clothing, Shoes & Accessories, Skincare & Make-up and Food goods.
“As consumer confidence increases on digital marketplaces, so does their desire to cross-shop and discover new categories. Likewise, as brands begin to include marketplaces in their growth strategy, consumers are met with more choice as the platforms add new products to cater towards a wider variety of consumer interests,” said Merline.
Marketplaces Continue to Serve as Product Discovery & Research Hubs
Marketplaces are increasingly becoming a product discovery hub for many online shoppers. Outside of Google (57% of shoppers), the next most popular channel to research products online is via digital marketplaces, where 23% of shoppers use platforms like eBay and Amazon to search for their goods.
Of those shoppers using Amazon, 62% indicated that they discovered a new brand on the platform. Interestingly, 42% of consumers who discovered a new brand or product on Amazon also went on to visit the retailer’s D2C website.
While eBay remains the dominant marketplace in Australia, it is being overtaken by Amazon in consumer search behaviour. Recent data from Power Retail suggests that Amazon has increased in popularity as a customer research tool by 71% (12% of product searches in January 2023 vs 7% in January 2022). This compares to eBay who’s popularity has decreased by 17% over the same period.
“These findings demonstrate the ongoing appeal of marketplaces as product discovery platforms, whereby consumers are utilising the wide breadth of product diversity on marketplaces to fine-tune their search for particular items. Digital marketplaces appeal to shoppers trying new brands online through building purchaser trust through customer data, including real-world product reviews and informative answers to product page questions,” ended Merline.
Download the full ‘Australian Marketplace Consumer Trends Report – 2023’ report HERE