Although Google may be the world’s most influential search engine, it is actually Amazon that takes the cake when it comes to controlling the market for consumer product searches.

This fact was uncovered in the latest study from inRiver, which revealed that 45 per cent of consumers from various European nations, including the UK, will choose to harness Amazon’s on-site search tool to look up an item they want to buy.

This means that as well as Google losing out on traffic, the sites operated by the brands which produce the products themselves are also failing to gain traction with customers.

Twenty eight per cent of respondents to the survey said that they still relied on search engines as their first port of call when attempting to identify a product or find out more information about it. The dominance of Amazon will no doubt raise questions about the competitiveness of the market and whether more should be done to address its stranglehold on safe shopping online.

Of course the fact that consumers trust Amazon to provide up to date, accurate product information has a lot to do with its impressive performance in this area. Ninety four per cent said that they saw such details as being crucial to determining whether or not they made a purchase in the first place, with the ability to research items before committing being a major benefit.

Forty one per cent said that so long as they get the full product info on the first site they visit, they will not feel the need to head elsewhere to complete the transaction. This further solidifies the idea that Amazon is going to continue taking custom from rivals, with shoppers valuing convenience as much as they appreciate the comprehensive nature of the information it offers.