In recent years, it has become increasingly important to the consumer to read up on a product, business, or service before spending any money. In 2021, nearly ** percent of online shoppers typically read between *** and *** customer reviews before making a purchasing decision. Less than *** in *** shoppers did not have a habit of reading customer reviews before buying.

Online research plays an important role for consumer electronic buyers. Before deciding which electronics to buy, 85 percent of worldwide consumers visited at least two websites. More than half looked at two or three websites before buying electronics online. In South Korea, 20 percent visited more than five websites before making a purchase.

When it comes to the people researching online before major purchases in selected countries worldwide, Greece ranks the highest in this list. 75 percent of consumer in Greece share this attitude. Following in the second place is Portugal, while China can be found at the bottom of the ranking.Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

This statistic shows the types of research that consumers performed prior to purchasing a product in the United States as of 2018. As of 2018, 82 percent of consumers stated that they read online consumer reviews before purchasing a product.

Most of the U.S. consumers taking part to a 2024 survey, did research for information online before a purchase. Customer reviews were the most favorite information source, at ** percent, while ********** of consumers searched for a company or a product on a search engine. Only *** percent of respondents did not conduct any of the selected research activities. Digital discovery and in-store visits Gen Z's reliance on digital platforms extends beyond reviews. Online search has become the primary starting point for product discovery among this demographic. Interestingly, the impact of digital research carries over to brick-and-mortar shopping as well. More than ** percent of U.S. consumers aged 18 to 24 visited a store's website before making an in-person trip, demonstrating the seamless integration of online and offline shopping experiences for this generation. Embracing new technologies and platforms Gen Z's openness to emerging technologies is evident in their shopping behaviors. Approximately ** percent of Gen Z adults in the United States support brands using generative artificial intelligence for personalized recommendations. This acceptance of AI-driven personalization outpaces that of Gen X, though it falls slightly behind millennials

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score of the e-commerce website of Amazon.com has fluctuated since 2000. In 2024, the customer satisfaction score of the online retailer was 83 out of 100 ASCI points. Popularity contest Amazon is one of the most popular marketplaces worldwide. In April 2023, the U.S. domain for Amazon ranked the most visited e-commerce and shopping website by share of online visits, with around 13 percent. Ebay came in second with roughly three percent of the visit share, and the Japanese site amazon.co.jp came in third with 2.66 percent. In the same month, global online shoppers visited amazon.com around 2.2 billion times. Why Amazon? Amazon.com is the most used e-commerce website in the world, and in the U.S., the website is far ahead of its competitors. With a significant difference in website visitors of almost 45 percent, ebay.com is second to amazon.com. Furthermore, the retail giant Walmart trails behind with an online visit share of roughly six percent. Amazon is used for various reasons by its customers. For example, the online marketplace is ranked as the leading platform for product research in the U.S., surpassing even search engines in popularity. Low shipping costs, fast deliveries, and affordable product prices are the main reasons for shopping on Amazon.

According to a study, e-commerce websites are the preferred channel for U.S. consumers to research and compare products before purchase, cited by more than 40 percent of respondents. Search engines ranked second, with a quarter of consumers surveyed, followed by e-commerce apps with 13 percent. Finally, only two percent said voice assistants were the channel they were most likely to use for this purpose.

The majority of Japanese consumers researched products before buying, as revealed in a survey conducted in August 2023. Over 60 percent of respondents across all age groups stated that they made sure to research their desired products sufficiently before making a purchase, with the highest share of elderly consumers aged 70 to 74 years.

This statistic shows how online shoppers in Denmark research products before purchasing online from 2015 to 2019. The results show that Danish consumers research primarily online, according to 87 percent of respondents in 2019. The least common research method is in physical stores, according to three percent of respondents in 2019.

This timeline shows the customer satisfaction with e-retail over the years, as measured in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score. In 2024, customer satisfaction with electronic retail reached 80 points out of 100. A bustling e-commerce market With one of the largest economies globally, it is no surprise that the United States also is a leading market for e-commerce on the global scale. In 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau reported retail e-commerce sales reaching an estimated 275 million U.S. dollars, nearly doubling since 2019. This high number of sales is made possible by the 273 million e-commerce users in the country – over 80 percent of the population. U.S. online fashion shopping Of the most popular categories to buy online, apparel and accessories is by far the most popular. In 2024, apparel, footwear and accessories made up 20.2 percent of the country’s total retail e-commerce sales. In the same year, the category was forecast to generate a total 145 billion U.S. dollars in overall revenue.

In Finland, more than 70 percent of Millennials do research on the internet before a major purchase. In China, only 40 percent of Millennials do the same, being the country with the lowest share of Millennials conducting research online before a major purchase out of the selected countries. Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

This statistic shows the frequency that consumers browse and research online before buying in-store amongst respondents from the Gulf Cooperation Council as of October 2016. The share of respondents who stated that they frequently browse online before shopping in-store totaled 33 percent.

In 2023, e-commerce comprised over 15.6 percent of total retail sales in the United States. Forecasts suggest that this proportion will continue to rise steadily in the coming years, reaching approximately 20.6 percent by 2027. Fashion fever The digital revolution has significantly changed how retail is done, impacting a wide range of product categories. Out of all e-commerce product categories, apparel and accessories are the most purchased online in the United States. As of February 2023, roughly 18 percent of all fashion retail sales took place online. Furniture and home furnishing, as well as computer and consumer electronics, ranked second, with over 15 percent of each product category purchased via the internet. The product categories that are least purchased online are office equipment and supplies (1.4 percent) and books, music, and video (5.1 percent). Shopping hotspots Amazon dominates the e-commerce industry in the United States, though other competitors still have significant market share. In December 2023, amazon.com was the most-visited e-commerce and shopping site in the United States. That month, around 45 percent of all visits to e-commerce sites were made to Amazon. Other popular shopping sites include ebay.com, walmart.com, etsy.com, and target.com. The staggering proportion of online retail sales in the country attributed to Amazon is quite remarkable. In 2023, Amazon's website accounted for almost half of all online computer and consumer electronics sales. Similarly, nearly one-third of online fashion purchases in the country were made on Amazon.

In 2021, many online shoppers in the United Kingdom (UK) considered what previous buyers had to say about products before purchasing the items themselves. Approximately **** in *** UK consumers stated they would check online reviews before buying from a particular business. Even more shoppers said they often avoid enterprises with a rating lower than four.

Most of the latest online purchases from abroad among U.S. shoppers were made in China, according to a 2023 survey. 53 percent of the e-commerce users surveyed in the United States had made their most recent purchase from there. The United Kingdom ranked second, with 10 percent. In turn, the U.S. was the main market where Canadian cross-border shoppers last bought online.

Webrooming was more popular among Swedish online shoppers in recent years, compared to showrooming. the share of consumers researching a product online before going to a conventional store increased from 40 percent of respondents in 2018, to 42 percent in 2019.

This statistic shows the share of consumers who do online research before product purchases in Canada as of August 2013, by product category. During the survey, 74 percent of the respondents said they use the internet to research technological devices, such as computers or audio devices, prior to purchasing.

In 2023, nearly one in five global consumers researched online before buying medication prescribed by their doctors or healthcare providers. These online channels included mobile apps, websites of medication retailers, and aggregators. In the United Arab Emirates, about 28 percent of consumers preferred to research online before purchasing prescribed medication, making it the region with the highest share. In Europe, only 12 percent of respondents did the same.

As of early 2023, approximately 43 percent of consumers in the United States said they would prefer to shop mostly online rather than in-store, making it the country with highest online shopping preference. In contrast, more shoppers preferred visiting physical stores in countries such as Austria, Finland, and New Zealand.

A survey conducted in 2023 revealed that more than half of the respondents in all the Nordic countries tend to research products online before purchasing them. About 63 percent of consumers in Norway shared that they have checked the Internet before making a purchase.