US consumers, brands, sellers on Amazon worried about inflation: Study

Over the past year, the average product price declined in 15 of Amazon’s 24 main product categories.

While the percentage of consumers shopping in-store at Walmart remained steady quarter on quarter, the percentage shopping on Walmart.com declined by 15 per cent.

Consumers aren’t the only ones worried about inflation; more than a quarter of brands and sellers on Amazon are also worried about its impact.

With inflation still a persistent concern, more than 70 per cent of consumers are looking for products with the lowest price, the company’s quarterly consumer trends report revealed.

TikTok’s role in e-commerce—and its influence on consumers—is accelerating. One in three US shoppers browse TikTok Shop at least once a week, and nearly one in four have bought a product there. Among Gen Z and Millennial consumers, those numbers are even higher, the survey revealed.

Augmented reality and artificial intelligence are changing the way people shop. On Amazon, use of the ‘View in Your Room’ tool has led one in three shoppers to make a purchase they would otherwise only make in person.

The majority of consumers (52 per cent) said they were spending about the same amount in the first quarter (Q1) this year as they did in Q4 2023. This deviates from the past three years, where the percentage of consumers reporting similar spending in Q1 compared to Q4 of the previous year was lower.

Nearly a third (32 per cent) of consumers said their spending decreased in Q1 2024; this percentage is lower than it has been in any quarter since Q2 2022.

While only 21 per cent of Gen Z and Millennial shoppers have increased their overall spending this quarter, these age groups are more likely to have increased their online spending than other generations.

The majority of consumers—61 per cent—started 2024 with their incomes unchanged from three months ago. While the percentage of those whose incomes were higher in Q1 2024 (21 per cent) increased compared to Q4 2023 (15 per cent), these percentages are at their lowest point since late 2022.

Across all generations, Amazon remains the most popular place to start when searching for a product online, though Gen X (56 per cent) and Baby Boomers (61 per cent) are the most likely to do so.

YouTube is the most popular social media channel for product searches across all generations. Nearly 40 per cent of Gen Z consumers—an even higher number than those that start with search engines like Google—start product searches on YouTube or TikTok.

Gen X and Baby Boomers are the generations most likely to start a product search on Google or another search engine (43 per cent).

A wide range of factors influence purchase decisions on Amazon. Right now, shoppers are concerned about both their personal finances and the economy at large. It makes sense, then, that price point has the greatest influence on which products consumers are choosing to buy in Q1 2024.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)