Subscribe & Save Frequency and Order Size Slows Down, Too

Amazon Prime membership, like Costco and Sam’s Club, is a wonderful customer affiliation for a retailer. The only thing better is reliable, repeat purchases, and that is why we are so interested in Amazon Subscribe & Save (S&S). Last week we showed how in 2023 about one-fifth of US Amazon customers had an active Subscribe & Save order, a slight decrease from 2022.

As a reminder, Subscribe & Save (S&S) is the program that allows shoppers to place a standing order that repeats on a regular schedule. Earlier we showed how S&S makes even better customers out of Prime members, including increasing average spending and loyalty. 

Our question now is how S&S shopper transaction behavior is changing, beyond the small decrease in the percent of customers with active orders. One might guess that the remaining S&S customers are the most intense users, with the largest and most frequent orders. Unfortunately for Amazon, that does not seem to be the case.

As participation in Subscribe & Save decreased in the past year, so did the size of Subscribe & Save orders and the frequency with which they were scheduled, albeit slightly. In 2023, Amazon customers with an active Subscribe & Save order received on average 9.2 S&S shipments per year, down from 10.3 shipments per year in 2022. These customers had an average of 2.2 items on Subscribe & Save in 2023, a very slight decrease from 2.3 items in 2022 (Chart 1).