Amazon Shoppers : Older, but not Richer

We started analyzing Amazon consumer behavior in 2013. Every quarter we survey 500 adults that bought something from Amazon.com in the prior 90 days. In addition to asking about that most recent purchase, we also collect extensive background information about each subject.

At the end of each quarter we analyze the newest data to build our Prime membership estimate, determine average customer spending, and more. Sometimes we like to look at the data over a long time frame to see how Amazon’s business has changed. Today we want to look at customer demographics.  

Over the past nine years, Amazon customers have grown older. We don’t mean that each individual aged by 9 years, we mean that the age of the average Amazon shopper increased.  In fact, that average went up by 13 years from 37 to 50 (Chart 1). Over the same time, the average income of US Amazon shoppers did not increase (Chart 2).