The future of the high-street and wider retail has long been discussed as a coming shift, but is it possible that this shift has come and gone already? New data from analyst Springboard shows that the number of people visiting the high street to shop remains 28.7% below the same period in 2019, the last pre-pandemic data available. The figure comes as a further indication that shopping habits have changed for good, with millions shifting their everyday purchases to Amazon. In fact, new research from marketplace experts Olsam Group shows that 58% of consumers now list Amazon as their first choice for shopping.
- 58% of Brits say Amazon is the first place they look when they need to buy something
- 69% of Brits say there are many products that they will never stop buying online, even post-pandemic (31.4million)
- 39% of Brits say most of their home purchases now come from the amazon marketplace (18.6million)
- 16% of Brits are looking to start their own e-commerce business in 2021 (4.6million)
Part of what made this sudden shift possible was Amazon’s growing ecosystem of Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) entrepreneurs, who account for around 60% of all sales on Amazon. These FBA ‘solo-preneurs’ have allowed Amazon to go well beyond the world of books and into the realm of almost every consumer good imaginable.
Sam Horbye, Olsam co-founder, comments: “Amazon, its marketplace and other platforms like it are still growing at a tremendous pace, which lockdown has obviously accelerated. That is not to say, however, that it is because of lockdown that this trend has emerged – these statistics clearly show that. The way consumers purchase goods is constantly in flux, from small independent shops to big high street chains and then onto online retail. It is now moving toward a marketplace model that creates one-stop shops for whatever a consumer needs. To see that nearly 60% of Brits see Amazon as that “shop” demonstrates the power of FBA sellers, who make up over 50% of sales on the site already.”
