Amazon, not Google, is the most popular starting point for Americans looking to buy products online

If you're an American buying a product online, you're probably going through Amazon.

Online marketplaces, a category that includes everything from eBay to Amazon, are the first stop for 38% of online shoppers in the US when they search for a product, according to a recent UPS survey charted for us by Statista. And Amazon itself is by far the most popular such destination, with 29% of the 5,000 shoppers surveyed heading to Amazon first.

That's nearly twice as many as those who use search engines like Google, and equal to the total number of those who said they use specific retailers' various channels.

The figure is yet another reminder of how much of a necessity Amazon, a data-driven company, is becoming for companies who want their products to reach consumers.

That growing dependence creates a convenient all-in-one marketplace for consumers, but given Amazon's ability to make and heavily promote its own versions of popular products, the ongoing shift toward online shopping, the ever-increasing number of Amazon Prime members, and Prime members' tendency to only shop on Amazon, it's also raised questions of how healthy the trend would be for consumers if it were to keep up in the coming years.

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider/Statista

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