Prime Members - More Buying, More Returns

Last week we looked at how Amazon customers handle product returns. We noted 42% of Amazon customers have returned an item in the past year, and almost three-quarters of those returns were via UPS, FedEx, or the US Postal Service.

Prime members account for almost three-quarters of Amazon orders in the US, so their return habits drive the typical return patterns. Still, we wondered how Prime members’ returns differ from those of non-Prime members. 

Prime members order from Amazon about twice as often as non-Prime members, and they are more likely to return items to Amazon, too. Those return costs are somewhat mitigated by their Prime membership fees, though those fees need to cover shipping costs, too. Prime members are also more likely to use Amazon return options that avoid third-party shipping, which reduces the cost to Amazon of processing those returns.

As we surveyed US Amazon shoppers about their most recent merchandise return, we divided the sample to compare Prime members and non-Prime members. Almost half of Prime members returned a purchase in the past year, compared to about one-quarter of customers without a Prime membership, which essentially aligns with their shopping frequency (Chart 1).