How Does Consumer Behavior Influence Amazon Prices? A Study of Prices and Search Trends

As the world’s most-shopped ecommerce platform, Amazon has a lot to tell us about who we are as shoppers. Search trends reveal what consumers want, and fluctuations in price offer insights into what they’re willing to pay.

Taken together, we can learn a lot about consumers and where the ecommerce market is headed as a whole.

In our recent collaboration with Datos, a global clickstream data provider, we defined the most-visited product pages on Amazon using a massive set of clickstream data points. We then crunched the numbers to measure price fluctuations using data from Keepa.

The following are our top three insights.

When it comes to the product category that showed the largest drop to price changes, electronics were by far the number one. Of the 67 total items we studied, 56 saw declines in price over 20%. Overall, the category saw a yearly change in price of -6.1%.

Adjacent categories, such as Cell Phones & Accessories and Video Games also saw significant decreases in prices for the year. Cell Phones & Accessories, and Video Games each fell -8.4%.

While these decreases are relatively large, it may not come as a surprise when considering the nature of the electronics market. Each year, electronics companies release new generations of products and older generations drop in price. The same is true for cell phones and video games.

Despite the nature of the market, however, the declines in price despite high inflation is an interesting trend to keep an eye on.

When looking at individual products that saw increases or remained similar in search traffic and prices, we discovered an interesting trend related to health food and products. One notable example was BetterBody Foods Organic Chia Seeds, which saw a steady traffic and price increase throughout last year.

Likewise, the immune boosting Genius Mushroom brand and TruSkin Vitamin C Serum both held steady in terms of prices.

Overall, the Health & Household category saw an overall yearly change of 2.7% and the Grocery & Gourmet Food category saw a 3.3% gain in prices. These trends could signal a growing interest in organic foods and health products as consumers seek to stay healthy in the years to come.

When looking at categories that have remained steady during a turbulent year, Semrush and Datos found that categories related to home and household items reflected a clear trend. Of the three home related categories we studied, none saw a year-over-year increase or decline in prices much higher than 1%.

In the Home & Kitchen category, prices only rose 1.1%. Likewise, the Home Improvement category crept upward by only 0.5%. And in the opposite direction, Patio, Lawn, & Garden category dropped in price by 1%.

From a growing interest in organic food products to seasonal influences on pricing, we’ve got the data you need to satisfy consumer cravings.

Be one of many competitive marketers who stay on top of the latest marketing trends with amazing tools like our Keyword Magic Tool for keyword research, Traffic Analytics for competitive web traffic research, or Semrush Apps for Ecommerce for industry insights.

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