The latest comScore report on American online buying habits reveals some interesting statistics about Amazon’s dominance in the American online marketplace. According to the report Amazon had almost 200 million unique visitors to their site in December alone, beating out Walmart (127 million unique visitors) and eBay (113 million unique visitors). Although Amazon dominates the competition when it comes to unique visitors, it’s another metric that really shows how dominant they are. Americans spent 22.6 billion minutes on Amazon in December, while second place eBay registered a comparatively low 6.2 billion minutes.
Given Amazon’s size and dominance in the market these statistics would hardly surprise most people, but there were some interesting takeaways from the report. Americans spent roughly two thirds of their online shopping time browsing websites on their mobile phones or tablets, but more than 75 percent of their e-commerce dollars were spent while on desktop computers. This shows us that while people are shopping and looking for products while on mobile devices, in the USA they still prefer going through checkout and actually making purchases using their desktop computer. This is not the case in Australia, generally mobile devices are the preferred option for purchasing on e-commerce sites.
(source: comScore)
The big question for Australian businesses is whether or not this dominance of the online marketplace will be repeated in Australia. What sets Amazon apart in the American market is their speed and convenience; in some cases people can order a product and have it delivered to their house in less than 30 minutes. Some argue Amazon has gone from selling products to selling a service, with that service being convenience. Subscription services that deliver everything from underwear to groceries to razors are now commonplace in America, and are becoming more and more popular in Australia.
Currently Amazon delivery times in Australia are nowhere near the speed they are in America but as more brands jump on board and Amazon gathers more data on purchases, we can expect the delivery times to shorten and its product list to expand. As the service becomes more convenient and easier for customers, more people will start using it to make regular purchases. So how can Australian businesses compete? They can either add their products to the Amazon marketplace or beat them at their own game and make buying their products as easy as possible.
One of the biggest differences between the American market and the Australian market is the use of mobiles phones when purchasing an item. As mentioned earlier, Americans prefer to browse on their phone but make actual purchase the product on a desktop. This is not the case in Australia, where online shopping on a mobile overtook desktop in 2016 and has only grown since then, with estimates on certain sites showing a 75% share on mobile devices. The stats on mobile shopping data also show us that mobile checkout completion is 11 percent lower than on a desktop, this highlights just how important convenience is for consumers. Often completing checkout on a mobile phone can be time consuming and fiddly so simplifying this process and making it easier for customer to complete their order will go a long way towards increasing sales.