The Evolution of Amazon, Continued - People Shop How Often?!

We’ve seen how The Everything Story evolved over the past ten years. Everyone knows the story: start as a bookstore, then gain a foothold and growth in highly desirable retail categories, including electronics, grocery, and apparel. We looked at retail categories last week. How else has Amazon shopping in the US evolved over the past decade?

Since 2013 CIRP has asked US Amazon.com shoppers how often they shop at Amazon.com and how many items were in their most recent order. The data shows that US Amazon customers have increased the frequency with which they shop at Amazon.com, yet they buy almost exactly the same number of items per order. The average number of items per order was 2.15 items in the twelve months ending March 2024, effectively the same as the 2.14 items in the twelve months ending March 2015.

Shopping frequency increased, however. 16% of US customers ordered from Amazon.com at least weekly in the most recent twelve-month period, compared to 10% in the same period in 2015 (Chart 1).