Amazon Prime is working.
That’s the quick and dirty takeaway from a survey conducted by market research consultancy Millward Brown Digital, which analyzed the buying patterns of more than 2 million consumers online.
It found that only 1 percent of people, who paid $99 for Amazon’s loyalty program, were likely to comparison shop when shopping online.
In addition, Prime users were more likely to pay for items once they were added to their carts. Amazon’s so-called conversion rate was 63 percent, which far exceeds the industry’s average of 3 to 4 percent, according to InternetRetailer.com.
Primarily, the report was meant as a warning to retailers, but it also serves another purpose: It gives us a sense for how well Amazon Prime is doing, especially since Amazon can be so tight-lipped about its performance.
To be sure, most retailers should heed the warning, and some have already tried to find ways to match — if not beat — Amazon’s promise to deliver items to Prime members, but those tactics are clearly not working.
In addition to offering shipping perks, Amazon has bulked up the program in recent years to add free streaming music and video services. And, in a growing number of markets, Prime customers can receive items in two hours for no extra charge.
The report also looked at how a consumer’s habits changed across the web when they are an Amazon Prime member.
For example, a non-Prime member was eight times more likely than a Prime member to also shop on Target.com during the same session. The results were even more extreme for Walmart.com. It found that 12 percent of non-Prime shoppers were likely to also shop on Walmart.com compared with less than 1 percent of Prime members.
Similarly dismal numbers were found for Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes and Toys R Us.
Finally, Millward Brown’s study also showed that Amazon Prime customers were driving a larger percentage of the company’s traffic, with visits from Prime members up 300 percent in the past year.
No wonder Amazon has started to advertise it more. Down below is the 30-second clip Amazon is currently running on multiple cable channels. The advertisement for Prime encourages users to sign up for a free 30-day trial to explore all the benefits it has to offer from shipping to streaming.
The spending will likely pay off: Other research suggests that Amazon has roughly 40 million Prime members who spend $1,500 a year on average.
