46% of Prime members say they buy on Amazon at least once a week

According to a new report on Amazon user behavior from Feedvisor, Amazon Prime members are visiting the ecommerce site at an extraordinary rate.

Conducted in partnership with Walker Sands Communications, the survey found that 85 percent of Amazon Prime members visit Amazon at least once a week. An even more astounding reveal is that nearly a third of Prime members (31 percent) are going to the site daily.

Feedvisor’s report (free, registration required) included survey results from 1,576 respondents — all US Amazon shoppers. Sixty-five percent of the respondents were Amazon Prime members.

While 85 percent of those Prime members report visiting the site once a week or more, that number drops to 56 percent for non-Prime members going to Amazon at least once a week.

Approximately how often do you visit Amazon?

Source: Feedvisor

Of the 85 percent of Prime members who visit Amazon at least once a week, nearly half (46 percent) make weekly purchases, and 6 percent make daily purchases. Feedvisor says Prime members, generally, are twice as likely to shop online daily compared to non-Prime members.

Approximately how often do you make purchases on Amazon?

Source: Feedvisor

Year-over-year trends show increasing engagement

Comparing how these trends shifted between 2016 and 2017, Feedvisor says weekly visits among Prime members rose 10 percentage points, from 75 percent in 2016 to 85 percent in 2017. Weekly visits by non-Prime members increased more significantly, from 32 percent in 2016 to 56 percent last year.

As far as Amazon purchases go, 30 percent of Prime members said they ordered products weekly on Amazon in 2016, which grew to 46 percent in 2017.

Only 4 percent of non-Prime members reported making weekly purchases on Amazon in 2016. That number grew to 13 percent in 2017.

Prime members more likely to shop on mobile

Feedvisor also asked the Amazon shoppers about the devices they are using to shop online (not only on Amazon, but overall), and found 51 percent use their desktop, while 47 percent use mobile (2 percent fell into a category defined as “other”). Prime members are more likely to use mobile, with 50 percent of Prime members reporting they shop on their mobile device versus the 41 percent of non-Prime members.

“Amazon Prime members shop on mobile more than non-Prime members, and are much more likely to use Amazon’s mobile app than non-Prime members,” claims Feedvisor, “Half of Prime members shop using mobile, of which nearly a quarter use Amazon’s mobile app, compared to just 14 percent of non-Prime members.”

The most popular reason the respondents gave for visiting Amazon was to compare prices, with 51 percent of Prime members and 50 percent of non-Prime members claiming they go to Amazon to compare prices on a specific item with an intent to purchase.

Price-checking & search habits

Feedvisor’s survey found the top three driving factors that result in Amazon purchases were lower prices, free shipping and positive product reviews.

Forty-four percent of the survey respondents said they “Always” check prices on Amazon, while only 25 percent said they “Always” check prices on different ecommerce sites, and 18 percent said they “Always” check prices via a Google search.

The study included data about Amazon search habits as well, with 75 percent of respondents saying they use the Amazon search box (versus Amazon’s “Today’s Deals” or its departments tabs, or performing a Google search for a product and including the Amazon’s URL within the search). Sixty percent of Amazon shoppers scroll beyond the first page of product results, and 54 percent claim to always read the full product description.

Feedvisor’s study included a relatively small number of respondents — the goal being to identify trends around Amazon shoppers and Amazon Prime members; but its findings shine a light on how Amazon is continuing to eat up more and more retail market share. The ecommerce giant owned a third of online sales during Cyber Monday and was the retailer most often mentioned in digital content related to Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year.

Amazon doesn’t release exact Prime member subscription numbers, but Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), a consumer-behavior research firm serving investors and analysts, estimated last October that Amazon had 90 million Prime members in the US. If we extrapolate the 6 percent of Prime members who told Feedvisor they shop on the site daily, that means there may be more than 5 million Prime members in the US alone making daily purchases on Amazon.