The Amazon market is the world’s hottest product search engine. But its dominance faces rising challenges from AI and social commerce.
For greater than 20 years, Amazon has made it simple for buyers to find merchandise, evaluate choices, learn critiques, and purchase.
A 2024 Jungle Scout survey (PDF) of 1,000 U.S. internet buyers discovered that 56% initiated product searches on the Amazon market, in comparison with 42% on conventional search engines like google (reminiscent of Google), and 29% on Walmart.com.
Why Amazon?
Amazon’s Prime membership was a stroke of ecommerce genius. The service modifications the best way some customers take into consideration costs and transport.
Merchandise on Amazon’s market are sometimes costlier than opponents’, and Prime itself prices $139 per yr. However to many patrons, there’s little cause to look elsewhere when transport is free, quick, and dependable.
Choice
Furthermore, Amazon’s product choice is very large and all-inclusive. Amazon itself sells greater than 12 million merchandise. Third-party sellers add upwards of 600 million, in keeping with printed studies. A client searching for an merchandise will probably discover it on Amazon.
Belief
Customers belief Amazon. They assume merchandise will arrive on time, with returns and refunds issued with out trouble.
This belief is value quite a bit. A 2025 Salsify report (PDF) discovered that 87% of buyers have paid extra for a product as a result of they belief the model. Those self same customers would probably seek for merchandise on a trusted market.
Opinions
The quantity of critiques on Amazon attracts buyers.
Opinions function choice insurance coverage. They cut back uncertainty and shorten the analysis cycle, particularly for merchandise the place use instances matter. As an alternative of studying a handful of articles, evaluating retailer websites, and looking Reddit threads, buyers can pull “social proof” from 1000’s of actual patrons with out leaving Amazon.
That comfort modifications habits. {The marketplace} turns into a spot for decision-making, not simply to purchase. So why not begin a product search the place different buyers can information you?
Cell app
Amazon’s cellular app supplies a bonus.
Looking for merchandise in a cellular internet browser is irritating, even in 2026. Pages load slowly. Pop-ups seem. Cookie prompts get in the best way. Consumers should pinch and zoom, navigate cluttered menus, and bounce between tabs.
Amazon’s app eliminates a lot of that friction for cellular customers. The search field is at all times one faucet away, filters are fast to use, product pages are constant, and the comparability course of occurs naturally via scrolling somewhat than clicking throughout a number of websites.
It’s an excellent expertise, and buyers use it.
Search iteration
“Search iteration” is the refinement of a question.
Customers within the product discovery mode usually have particular wants. Amazon search can route buyers towards merchandise they’re probably to purchase.
Model and mindshare
Amazon is ubiquitous past merchandise. Prime Video, Audible, Kindle, Fireplace TV, Echo gadgets, and Amazon’s creator and influencer content material not directly contribute to go looking dominance and behavior.
Boston Consulting Group, for instance, asserts that such “mindshare” is very correlated with buy consideration.
Put one other approach, the parents who watch Prime Video are prone to seek for merchandise on Amazon.
AI and Social
Taken collectively, these elements function a playbook for the main product search engine and provide each classes and dilemmas for retailers. A store can, for instance, resolve to incorporate merchandise on Amazon solely for discovery advantages.
One other consideration is whether or not Amazon maintains its lead in product search.
Some 56% of respondents on the Jungle Scout 2024 survey started product searches on Amazon. However that share is down from the 61% reported by Jungle Scout in 2022 (PDF).
One thing is chipping away at product search and discovery. In 2026, that “one thing” is probably going AI and social.
AI commerce is prone to shift the place the primary question happens, thus eroding Amazon’s product-search dominance.
As buyers ask for “one of the best” product possibility, generative AI platforms will more and more assemble shortlists from a number of sources, lowering the necessity to begin with Amazon. AI will pull discovery and comparability out of {the marketplace} interface, though Amazon can nonetheless win the transaction.
Social commerce on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube will more and more resemble search engines like google for lifestyle-driven classes. Consumers, particularly youthful ones, typically arrive at Amazon with a product already chosen.
In these instances, Amazon turns into the achievement vacation spot somewhat than the invention engine, which modifications the economics of product search and promoting on the platform.
