Amazon will hold its second annual Prime Day on Tuesday (July 12), when the massive online retailer promises to offer big discounts on everything from toys to sporting apparel and home goods.
Amazon says it will have almost two times as many TV sets in stock as it typically does on a Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
Prime Day is going to be HUGE for Amazon, and its first offering last year has also proven to be a big success for the online retailer as well. According to research released by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, Amazon has added 19 million U.S. members since its first Prime Day, held on July 15, 2015, and it now has about 63 million members in the U.S.
That’s a massive jump of more than double from June 2014, when Amazon had a little more than 25 million Prime members.
CIRP estimated that, as of June 30, 2016, about 52 percent of all U.S. Amazon customers were Prime members as well, with the majority of them members for the first time.
According to CIRP, the average Amazon Prime member spends about $1,200 annually on Amazon, compared to non-Prime members who spend about $500 per year on the site.
“U.S. Amazon Prime membership continued its strong growth over the past 12 months,” Josh Lowitz, a partner and cofounder of CIRP, said in a statement. “Amazon added a net 19 million members since July 2015, compared to an increase of 16 million members in July 2014–June 2015 period. Amazon promoted the service aggressively, starting with the first Prime Day in July 2015 and continuing with exclusive product offers and enhanced services throughout the year.”
Another enticement to draw in new Prime members is Amazon now offers the service at a monthly fee of $10.99, rather than charging members the entire $99 subscription rate when they first join.
“Prime is a somewhat different service than it was two years ago,” said Mike Levin, partner and co-founder of CIRP, in a statement. “Amazon has expanded its media offerings greatly, including exclusive video content, HBO programs, streaming music and now personal photo storage. Prime also offers a much richer environment for Amazon device owners, with access to free Kindle books, the improved video library for Fire TV and Prime music and shopping tightly integrated into the Alexa service on Echo devices. In addition, Amazon recently introduced a monthly payment option, which may succeed in opening the market to a new a group of potential members. About 22 percent of Prime members that joined Amazon Prime in the quarter opted for the monthly payment plan.”
CIRP based its findings on surveys of 500 U.S. consumers who made a purchase via Amazon between April 2016 and June 2016.
