Is Amazon Preparing the Next Generation?
In many communities, it’s a long-standing rite of passage - marry, buy a house, have kids, get a Costco membership. Does this sequence also apply to Amazon Prime? Or, has Costco set an unmatchable standard, and Amazon needs to forge a new retail life cycle?
At the other end of the market, much has been said about Temu and Shein gaining market share among the youngest online shoppers. While those upstarts have an angle on fast fashion and non-urgent purchases for the home, they cannot compete with Amazon on breadth of offerings and convenience.
Amazon’s success attracting new, young shoppers is an easy question to answer with our data. For Prime members, CIRP asks how long a survey subject had their membership. We sort them into three vintages - new members who joined in that past year, developing members of one to three years, and established members of more than three years.
It appears that Amazon Prime members are joining at younger ages and presumably creating lifelong habits. Younger customers are overrepresented in the new member cohort. 29% of Prime members who joined in the past year are under age 35, while that age group makes up only 16% of Prime members overall (Chart 1).