Amazon Prime’s Reach into Walmart.com Customers is Profound
Amazon Prime, with its committed 200 million US Amazon shoppers and 75% penetration into its US customer base, seems invincible. Amazon doesn’t behave like that, of course. It continues to add features and benefits to deliver “disproportionate value” to its Prime members.
As we think about Amazon Prime, we consider all sorts of possible threats, from AI shopping agents displacing retail brands to next generation streaming video that overtakes Prime Video (and all of its seemingly established competitors). The most obvious threat is retail competition. Walmart, still the largest retailer in the US, has moved aggressively into online shopping with Walmart.com. Their Walmart+ membership program is designed specifically to compete with Amazon Prime.
While Walmart+ has a fraction of Amazon Prime’s US membership, it continues to grow and gain traction in the Walmart.com customer base. There is considerable overlap between the two programs’ membership bases, which might be expected. There is a bigger surprise in the numbers, however, and it should bolster Amazon’s confidence.
As we have previously said, shoppers shop, so it is not a surprise that 94% of Walmart.com customers report they shopped at Amazon.com at some point. These customers are more than aware of Amazon.com and are at least a little familiar with the OG e-commerce website. How familiar is telling.
Among Walmart.com customers, 43% have both a Walmart+ and an Amazon Prime membership (Chart 1). The surprise is in the complement to that group. Note, CIRP measures the number of shoppers who use an Amazon Prime or Walmart+ membership, not the number of paid subscribers, which is presumably lower.