If the reports by Investor’s Business Daily are correct, then the executive teams at Target, Walmart, Macy’s and every other big physical retailer in the world are all likely having some variation on the same terrible morning.
Investment bank Cowen — after surveying 2,500 U.S. shoppers — concluded in a report released yesterday (Jan. 13) that, as of Dec. 2015, Amazon Prime has 41 million subscribers in this country, a 32 percent increase from the same time in 2014. Much of that spike is attributed to Prime Day and the wave of shopping and memberships it set off during the summer.
Worldwide estimates of Prime membership clock in around the 80 million mark.
The report also indicates that they are a higher earning group than Walmart’s or Target’s base, with a household income of around $70,000 — 25 percent higher than the average Walmart household’s income and 4 percent above Target’s. Prime shoppers also tend to convert at a much higher rate than both regular Amazon shoppers and Internet users in general and purchase more when they make a buy.
“That’s their weapon [fulfillment] right now,” Wells Fargo Analyst Matt Nemer told IBD in an interview. “The extremely efficient distribution program feeds into Prime. There’s a lot of loyalty.”
And loyalty, lately, is the name of the game. Amazon might not have invented the pay-to-play loyalty platform — Costco is more often named with that honor in mass market retail — but it sure has perfected it, particularly in the eCommerce arena.
“I’m surprised we haven’t seen more innovation in loyalty, but I don’t think it’s too late,” Nemer added.
Despite all the powerfully good news, Amazon stock has been in a slide, likely caught up in the great selloff that is becoming the most notable feature of early 2016. Investors, at this point, are unsure about how some things will break for Amazon in the near and distant future.
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