Consumers prefer online marketplaces to brands’ sites or search engines, survey

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We already know that online shopping is pretty popular among consumers, but a new global study finds where exactly consumers from the US, UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands like to shop.

Netherlands-based ChannelEngine’s latest Marketplace Shopping Behavior Report 2025 found that online marketplaces are the place to be for most shoppers.

• Amid the 4,500 people surveyed across countries, 63% said they preferred purchasing on marketplaces instead of brand-owned websites.

Consumers have a good reason for their preferences. For some, online marketplaces simply serve as efficient search engines.

• 47% of respondents said that they used marketplaces for product discovery over popular search engines like Google.
• Moreover, about 1 in 5 shoppers said they browsed marketplaces on a weekly basis, while 59% of shoppers in the US are browsing on them just for fun.

But we all know how shopping for “fun” often turns into a hefty credit card statement; 56% of those surveyed said they made unplanned purchases on marketplaces at least sometimes, while 13% consumers reported doing it often.

“Consumers now shop across so many marketplaces that brands and retailers must embrace a multichannel strategy to stay competitive—or risk being left behind. It’s not just about being on Amazon anymore,” Jorrit Steinz, CEO of ChannelEngine, said in a statement.