A recent Bizrate Insights/Forrester Research survey finds that online consumers believe that marketplaces are providing them with the opportunity to find and purchase products from a multitude of retailers in one convenient location. Married with trust in the checkout and order fulfillment processes, today’s marketplaces could become the much coveted “universal shopping cart” some shoppers dream about.
One-stop, trusted shopping is the key benefit of a good marketplace
33% of online shoppers have purchased from a marketplace. Most of these shoppers cite an appreciation of the convenience offered by marketplaces and the ability to find items and retailers they may not have otherwise found. However, what is most instrumental is that a well-established marketplace can help give online consumers the confidence to purchase from an unfamiliar retailer.
Ratings and reviews influence purchase decisions from unfamiliar retailers
Supporting the notions of trust and confidence in retailers, most online customers familiar with marketplaces note that ratings and reviews of retailers in the marketplace influence purchase decisions; 88% of this group actively look for ratings as a part of their purchase decision.
Marketplaces add enough value to garner repeat visitation
Of those consumers who had recently made a purchase through a marketplace, nearly 3 in 5 would repurchase through the same marketplace again when considering the purchase of the same item in the future. Only 11% would go directly to the retailer site to purchase and 26% are not sure where they would go next.
For more information, please download the free PDF report here.
About the Survey
The 2012 Bizrate Insights/Forrester Research Marketplaces Survey was conducted in partnership with Sucharita Mulpuru at Forrester Research. Data was collected via the Bizrate Insights survey platform and offered to online buyers immediately after purchasing from the Bizrate Insights Network of over 5,000 ecommerce retailers in the US and Canada. Data from this study was collected from 11,736 online buyers from March 7– March 18, 2012.
For over 12 years, Bizrate Insights has helped retailers listen to their customers in a way that is fast and measurable, resulting in insights, action, conversation, and customer loyalty. The Bizrate Insights customer feedback and ratings platform allows retailers to collect seller ratings directly from verified customers. Standard ratings are published across the leading comparison shopping site, Bizrate.com, and syndicated across the web’s largest search engines to help drive conversion and traffic. Collecting over 16 million surveys annually, Bizrate Insights is one of the largest sources of consumer-generated review content in the world, delivering actionable insights and valuable shopper data to key decision makers in e-commerce.