Pattern Australia has released its fourth annual report on consumer considerations and e-commerce. Impressively, Amazon has managed to hold onto the accelerated gains it made in the last two years when consumers were in lockdown, and the research finds that e-commerce shoppers have no plans to slow their spending on the marketplace in 2022. DTC is also a big winner with most consumers anticipating they will spend more online via a brand’s own digital channels.  

Key findings of the report include:

• Amazon Australia has held onto the growth from the previous two years, maintaining over 50 per cent saturation in the local market.
• 44 per cent of e-commerce consumers are planning to spend more on marketplaces in 2022.
• 64 per cent of e-commerce consumers have bought a brand from Amazon that they had never purchased before
• Amazon Prime Membership grew 30 per cent in 2021.

The report also found that purchasing from other Amazon regions (eg: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) is decreasing, as the width of selection on Amazon Australia grows. The rate of purchasing from Amazon.com.au increased slightly, as did the frequency of purchasing from Amazon when products are not available anywhere else online.  

These results mirror key predictions from Morningstar Equity Research, which recognise Amazon’s significant infrastructure investment in the region and forecast Amazon sales to 25 per cent of all online sales, or 5 per cent of all retail sales by 2030. The most recent infrastructure project Amazon is launching in the region is the largest warehouse in the Southern Hemisphere, located in Western Sydney. The delivery proposition from Amazon is a key conversion factor: 34 per cent of consumers who had purchased from Amazon in the last 12 months cited delivery as a key reason for choosing Amazon over another retailer.

Poll participants were asked a new question this year around gifting, the research found that 29 per cent of consumers visited Amazon to shop for gifts, a key opportunity for gifting focussed brands. These results had a skew towards females in the 25-34 category with high household incomes. 

Trust in the platform is also growing, with customers (64 per cent) purchasing more new brands from the site than last year (7 per cent more), making the platform a significant brand discovery channel.

This discoverability combined with Amazon’s robust first-party data makes it the perfect channel for brand discovery and trial – with Amazon increasing ad sales threefold in the last year, as brands make the move to the platform and start to unlock its strengths. As the fourth largest publisher in Australia, Amazon is well placed to support brands both on- and off-platform in new channel growth. 

You can download the full report here.

About the author: Merline McGregor is GM at Pattern Australia, the e-commerce partner of choice for a growing number of consumer brands, acting as their authorised marketplace seller. As well as being one of the largest Amazon sellers in the world, the company is also present on Tmall, JD.com, Ebay, and others.