Recently, marketplace management platform ChannelEngine released the company’s 2026 iteration of its marketplace shopping behavior report. This report highlighted the ways people shop online, their preferences, how they decide to buy, and much more.
The results explore shopping journeys, how people differentiate products, what factors influence buying decisions, and several other insights that are crucial for ecommerce brands to be aware of going into 2026 and beyond.
Marketplace Shopping Behavior Report 2026 Results
The report is based on the insights of 4,500 marketplace shoppers across the US, UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. It included several important stats and pieces of data that shine a light on how marketplace shoppers search for products, make decisions, and more.
One of the key findings highlights just how much of a role AI has in the shopping journey. Despite AI being in its relative infancy in the shopping space, 58% of respondents have already used it to research products.
However, while people are clearly comfortable using AI to research products, they’re not ready to let AI handle the whole transaction. Only 17% of respondents feel comfortable purchasing directly through AI today.
The report also covered how comparisons are the standard in online shopping today, as 53% of respondents always or often compare the same product across multiple places and browse an average of three before deciding where to buy.
Trust signals play a major role, as three in five shoppers hesitate to buy if a product has no reviews, and over 80% of people rely on reviews, ratings, and verified feedback to make a purchase.
Speaking about trust, it’s the main factor holding back cross-border shopping. While 58% of consumers have purchased from an international marketplace, the report said that 46% tend to avoid them due to authenticity, delivery, and return-based concerns.
Also, while 37% of respondents still begin their shopping journeys on marketplaces, 23% begin on search engines, and 11% on brand websites. The report mentions that discovery is increasingly being spread across a variety of other social and AI-driven channels, as well.
Why This Information Matters
The information in this report matters for a variety of reasons. First, the report highlights that shopping journeys are no longer linear. People don’t often simply see a product, go to the online store that sells it, and check out.
They discover the product in one place, check out reviews or feedback on another, and compare things like pricing, shipping, and policies between different sellers to arrive at the one that makes the most sense for them.
The report also highlights the importance of high-quality product-related content to influence shopper confidence, shows how crucial it is for companies to reduce friction during the shopping experience, and suggests that many people are open to trying new marketplaces or buying from international sellers, as long as they’re clear about things like delivery, returns, costs, and more.
How Ecommerce Brands Should Respond
This report is full of useful and interesting information about the actions and behaviors of online shoppers, but how can ecommerce brands best use this data?
First, due to things like rising product similarity and consumers directly comparing products from different places to one another, it becomes crucial to highlight why your product is more credible and valuable than others, and what differentiates it from what your competition offers.
Also, while a strong brand is still important, confidence is often information-led today. As a result, simply saying that a product is good and high-quality because it comes from a certain well-known brand no longer cuts it.
To hold up during direct customer comparisons, companies need to create strong content about the features of their products, and the benefits they provide/pain points they address.
While being the first product or store a customer discovers is still valuable, with many people exploring multiple locations, it’s important to not only attract customers with strong marketing or content but also ensure that your product, customer support, site experience, and policies are enough to keep them around.
I also believe that ecommerce brands should be looking for ways to help shoppers cope with the increased complexity of how people shop today.
While all of this extra work and research can be done with the help of AI, many people are still doing it manually, which is ultimately slowing down purchasing decisions as people compare products, look for reviews, and check various marketplaces and sites.
As a result, ecommerce brands need to do their best to reduce friction throughout the entire experience they offer. You don’t want exploring your store or checking out to feel like another hurdle for potential customers, but instead a simple and straightforward encounter.
