Posted on 01/25/2016 11:59:53 AM PST by Citizen Zed
Here we are at the start of 2016, when Prime membership costs $99 a year, and a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimates that there are currently roughly 54 million Amazon Prime members in the U.S. Overall, 47% of the people who shop at Amazon are Prime members, the study says.
For Amazon, the astonishing growth of Prime is a tremendous win-win. Amazon benefits doubly with Prime because 1) it collects annual subscription fees from tens of millions of consumers; and 2) subscribers tend to spend a disproportionately high amount of money with Amazon compared to non-members.
A year ago, a CIRP report estimated that the average Prime member spent $1,500 annually at Amazon, versus $625 for nonmembers. That's a huge gap, giving credence to the theory that perhaps the biggest accomplishment of Prime is that once subscribers are hooked, they more or less stop shopping everywhere else.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
I live in Alaska where it is common practice to be stiffed for shipping costs. I don’t know anyone who isn’t Amazon Prime.
I’d have to say that my delivery experience has been probably 90 to 95% positive. I think of the few mess ups, and a few of those have been annoying...but the vast majority I never think about.....
Amazon was identified as a threat to Walmart (that takes some doing, btw) and Walmart tried taking them on head-to-head. Over the long haul, Walmart has a marginal advantage (because brick and mortar is needed, somewhere in the distribution chain, for pretty much all food items; no one has got the low-margin food retailing biz to succeed online, and online has the lower cost that would otherwise be a perfect mate) but Amazon can manage lower markup on slow stock turn items that both can sell and would ordinarily have better margins for Walmart than food. Buying clothes online is another area which just hasn't caught on, particularly with women who indeed do more clothes shopping and buying than do men (most children get their clothes shopping done in the company of their mommies, for example).
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