Online marketplaces in UK increase in popularity

Online shoppers in the United Kingdom are four times more likely to order from online marketplaces than direct from retailers. Over half of the 69 percent of shoppers who regularly buy online, do so via online marketplaces.

Online marketplaces in Europe are getting more and more popular, and that’s also the case for these platforms in the United Kingdom. Here, 57 percent of shoppers buy from marketplaces, compared to 13 percent who order directly from a retailer’s website.

Consumers are drawn to broad product ranges

According to the researchers from Adobe this is because of the fact consumers now have more time on their hands and because of the restrictions to shopping in-store. “Consumers were drawn to the broad product ranges, robust delivery infrastructure and limited steps between logging-on and checking-out that characterize marketplaces”, it explains [pdf].

In the period between March and June of this year, the average online shopper in the UK made 11 purchases from an online marketplaces and just 3 from an online retailer.

‘Marketplaces got ahead of other retailers’

Peter Bell, marketing director EMEA at Adobe, thinks that during the first weeks of the pandemic, marketplaces were able to get ahead of other retailers and brands. “All thanks to their ability to scale quickly and establish a reputation for reliability that saw them become the first port-of-call for a wide range of goods.”

Online marketplaces were able to scale quickly during the pandemic.

Another interesting finding from the study is that now over half of consumers say they will continue to shop online for the foreseeable future, even as physical stores start to re-open their doors.