Brand Bias: 70% Of Consumers Look For Known Retailers When Doing Product Searches

New research from Search Engine Land and SurveyMonkey shows that consumers have a definite brand bias when it comes to searching for products online.

According to data from a survey conducted last month, almost 70 percent of US consumers said they look for a “Known retailer” when deciding what search results they click on. That was the most popular response, followed by “Free shipping” and then “Discount or sale offer.”

Respondents were able to choose up to three answers to the question, What is most important in helping you decide which results to click on in a search engine search?

The top two replies were the only ones chosen by more than 50 percent of the 400+ consumers that took the survey. Rounding out the top five are “Image and price is shown” and “Review stars.”

Here’s the full chart showing each response:

The survey was conducted on November 21-22, 2013 by Search Engine Land and SurveyMonkey. Results were collected with a 95 percent confidence interval and a 5 percent margin of error from more than 400 Americans using SurveyMonkey Audience.

Where Consumers Search For Gifts: Google & Amazon

We also asked the group of consumers which sites they plan to use this year when searching online for gifts. Perhaps not surprisingly, Google and Amazon were the runaway choices at 67 percent and 66 percent, respectively. They were the only two sites to be named by more than a quarter of consumers. Ebay ranked third with 24 percent.

But surprising to me, at least, was the strong showing of both Groupon and Etsy. Groupon was named by 13 percent of respondents and Etsy by almost 12 percent, meaning both sites scored higher than Pinterest and Bing. Shopping comparison engines Shopzilla, Nextag, Pricegrabber and Bizrate were the lowest scorers.

Over on Marketing Land today, Greg Sterling shares some of the survey data regarding smartphone use and mobile shopping, as well as what consumers say they’re looking for in a mobile shopping website, in his article Survey: Majority Use Smartphones In Stores, Not For E-Commerce.

Summary of Findings & Complete Survey Data

Related coverage of the survey results: 

• Survey: 3 Out 4 Consumers Now Notice Retargeted Ads
• Survey: Majority Use Smartphones In Stores, Not For E-Commerce
• Survey: Majority Use Mobile Search, Find It “Harder Than PC”
• The Impact of Mobile on Holiday Shopping byEli Schwartz at SurveyMonkey

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Matt McGee

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.