A new study to identify the most useful brands currently operating in the UK has seen online retail giant, Amazon, beating out a variety of rivals from different industries, to take the top spot.

Conducted by 383, the survey included responses from 2,300 Brits, with the majority citing Amazon as being a convenient part of their lives, thanks to its fast and affordable platform for safe shopping online.

In fact, Amazon set a trend for the top five brands identified as being useful, based on their technological creations and services, with only the BBC standing apart from this group in terms of the products with which it is traditionally associated.

Ultimately, people in the UK consider brands to be useful if they cater to modern expectations of convenience, which is why tech firms were able to dominate the rankings.

One of the only traditional retailers to make the grade was Marks & Spencer, which was only rated useful by eight per cent of those questioned. It does at least offer shopping online, although compared to Amazon, its range of products is inevitably limited and a minimum spend of £50 is required for free home delivery to become available.

Of course, emerging tech brands that are penetrating consumers’ consciousnesses today will eventually become the old guard of the industry, so perhaps their current levels of convenience and usefulness are being overestimated by people in the UK, who are still revelling in the early days of e-commerce.

And crucially, this study asks purely whether or not a brand is deemed to be useful, not whether people have enjoyed the rest of their experiences when engaging with a particular organisation. So a deeper look may be needed to get to the bottom of what makes British consumers tick.