Casual Shoppers Have a Narrower View of Amazon

As we observed in our previous post, it’s hard to believe, but not everyone shops at Amazon all the time.

We explained that about one-quarter of US Amazon customers order from Amazon less than monthly. The casual shoppers have fewer small dollar and fewer high dollar orders, and they generally include fewer items in their order than the more frequent shopping three-quarters of US Amazon customers. We concluded, “...infrequent Amazon shoppers seem to cherry-pick at Amazon. For infrequent customers, Amazon becomes a buying platform for a specific need, rather than a source for wide ranging orders.”

As we dug deeper, we noted a specific shopping pattern that explains much of the difference and reinforces the cherry-picker label. The infrequent customers don’t order groceries as much as the frequent customers. CIRP data shows infrequent customers are likely to order from three other important departments (electronics, home, and clothing) proportionately as much or more than frequent ones (Chart 1). However, infrequent customers are less prone to shop for groceries than frequent Amazon customers.