Analysis: Influence of the Ukraine War on Search Behaviour on Amazon

After analysing the changing search behavior of consumers on Amazon in Europe and the U.S. during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we have now researched the impact of the war in Ukraine on e-commerce in Germany over the past few days. To do this, we examined various search terms entered on Amazon.de before and after the start of the war between February 7 (CW 6) and March 13 (CW 10) of this year.

The disheartening result of the search term analysis is this: Citizens in Germany are currently very concerned about the consequences of the war situation. Similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Germans seem to fear an impending food shortage in particular and are returning to hoarding purchases on Amazon. Some Amazon users apparently even anticipate a further escalation of the war – numerous search queries indicate concerns about the seriousness of a potential nuclear attack or other possible crisis scenarios in Germany.

Increased searches for cooking oil and flour

The fact that Ukraine is considered the “granary of Europe” and the general fear that supplies of certain products may become scarce due to the war, has resulted in supermarkets in Germany increasingly selling out of cooking oil and flour. The increased demand for these products is also visible on Amazon:

• “Sunflower oil” was the third most entered search term on the online marketplace in Germany last week (CW 10). At the beginning of February, the keyword was still as low down as 10,000th place in the ranking of all searched products.
• Within the past weeks the keyword “wheat flour” climbed up even faster: it rose up almost 500,000 places, reaching search rank 1,529.

Preparations for continued escalation

Another trend shows pertains to terms related to emergency supplies and survival measures. Online shoppers in Germany seem to want to prepare themselves for the expansion of the Ukraine war into their own country:

• Bulletproof and stab-proof vests, drinking water filters and canisters, respirators, solar-powered radios and long-lasting emergency food are among the Amazon keywords that have seen the biggest increase in the last four weeks.
• The biggest jump up the keyword rankings made “potassium iodide Lannacher 65 mg” tablets, which are designed to protect against the ingestion of radioactive materials during nuclear attacks.*

However, There are no products that would act as an alternative to gas imported from Russia among the fastest-growing search terms in the top 100,000 keywords, such as electric heaters. Only a “petroleum heater interior” was among these top rankings.

Amazon search terms reflect the mood

Similar to Google search queries, search terms on Amazon allow for deeper insights into the mood of a population, virtually in real-time. Due to the war in Ukraine, many citizens in Germany are very concerned about developing further and the associated effects on everyday life. Equally, we are deeply concerned by the ongoing conflict and hope to contribute with our analysis to the general view of the war and investigation of its longer-term effects.

*Note: Taking potassium iodide tablets may cause side effects and should only be done after explicitly requested by the emergency response authorities. More information: Federal Office for Radiation Protection website