Coffee & Candy Rank at the Top of Global Buyer Search Trends in 2022

SAN FRANCISCO — Coffee, candy and mushrooms were top-of-mind among retail buyers last year, as they were the most-used keyword searches on online platform RangeMe, according to the discovery platform's Retail Recap 2022 report. 

The report highlights trends among the activity of U.S. and international buyers on the product discovery platform, including keyword and certification searches, most visited collections and engagement with products and brands.

"The products buyers are searching for now are those that will be on the shelves in the coming months and years," said Nicky Jackson, founder of RangeMe. "By analyzing the buyer activity on RangeMe, we get a look at what will be trending next in the fast-moving consumer goods arena."

Coffee was the most popular keyword for buyers in 2022, garnering 19.4 percent of all searches, which reflected new trends in the category including cold brew, fair trade, functional coffee and coffee accessories. Just behind coffee, representing 18.4 percent of keyword search terms, was candy, a category that includes some of the top performing brands on RangeMe based on overall buyer activity and engagement.

With 18.3 percent of search volume, the keyword "mushroom" was searched in the context of several different categories across the food and beverage and health and beauty care categories, such as "mushroom coffee" and "mushroom supplements." The report states this is likely due to their growing popularity for health benefits, as well as serving as both a meat alternative and an ingredient in beverages, snacks and nutritional supplements.

Other popular search terms included toys (10.5 percent), water (9.6 percent), pet (8.3 percent), sunscreen (8 percent) and candles (7.5 percent).

RangeMe also saw interest concentrated on particular collections, groups of brands and products that fit a particular theme. Two of their most recently created collections — "Trending on RangeMe" and "Startup Brands" — continued to be among the most visited on the platform, while the "Sustainability" collection, which saw visits drop during the COVID pandemic, is now among the most visited.

Read the full report here.

RangeMe streamlines new product discovery and purchasing between suppliers and retailers by empowering retail buyers to discover innovative and emerging products, while streamlining the inbound product submission process.