This poll captures Amazon’s staggeringly big role in online shopping - The Washington Post

A stark Internet retail snapshot; tangentially, see Sad State of Retail Apps (Tech.pinions)

"Consumers were asked how often they search for products or check prices on Amazon when they shop online. Some 24 percent of online shoppers said “always,” and another 25 percent said “most of the time.”  That means Amazon has managed to lure some 49 percent of online shoppers to consistently consider their site.  (And still another 26 percent said they “sometimes” search Amazon.)

This underscores the enormous challenge that traditional retailers face as they try to pull down more online sales.  They have to win the minds of a shopper who is habitually — almost on autopilot, really — going to Amazon.  And so while chains such as Walmart and Target are spending billions of dollars to create websites that are more attractive and easier to use, and are overhauling their supply chains to offer speedier and more reliable shipping, all those innovations simply won’t matter if they can’t get shoppers to reflexively think of them in the same way shoppers already think of Amazon."

This poll captures Amazon’s staggeringly big role in online shopping - The Washington Post