This year’s Amazon Prime Day resulted in the largest shopping event to date for the e-commerce giant with more than 175 million items sold in 48 hours, surpassing sales during the previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday events combined. PSCU today reported that its Owner credit unions also experienced banner results during this year’s two-day shopping frenzy, benefitting from the dedicated promotional programs offered through PSCU’s Advisors Plus. Data gathered by PSCU, the nation’s premier payments credit union service organization (CUSO), indicated that Owner credit unions experienced a 31% growth in total transactions year over year and a 46% increase in total sales volume compared to 2018.
According to PSCU, when looking at the various types of online-based merchants, Amazon is driving about half of the volume of all transactions. Given this trend, PSCU’s Advisors Plus – which offers consulting services for PSCU Owner credit unions to help fuel growth and achieve financial and business goals – made numerous promotional programs available to Owners for this year’s Amazon Prime Day to ensure their cards were poised to gain the coveted top-of-wallet position. Campaigns offered cash-back incentives at around 2% for cardholders making purchases on Amazon Prime Day using their credit union-issued debit and/or credit cards.
As a result, PSCU Owners saw growth in transactions of more than 23% for credit cards and 37% for debit cards during Amazon Prime Day year over year, while sales volume for both credit and debit cards experienced an increase of approximately 46%.
“Amazon Prime Day is an exceptionally visible event with broad marketability – and it gets bigger every year. With the overall increase in transactions taking place online, it is imperative that credit unions be part of the online shopping experience, and we wanted to help our Owner credit unions better compete and benefit from events like Amazon Prime Day,” said Glynn Frechette, senior vice president of PSCU’s Advisors Plus. “We are very pleased to see that the ‘Top of Wallet’ programs we put in place with our Owners helped lead to a marked increase in transactions and sales volume for this year’s Amazon Prime Day. With back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons around the corner, PSCU and Advisors Plus will continue to work with our credit unions to optimize transactions, increase sales volume and remain in the top-of-wallet spot.”
To calculate 2019 Amazon Prime Day findings, PSCU’s Data & Analytics team compiled and analyzed information from credit unions that used the CUSO for debit and/or credit processing during both the 2019 and 2018 shopping events. PSCU compared information from two full-day periods, year-over-year.
“At PSCU, we find it is not only important to arm our Owners with the tools they need to market offerings to their members, but also to provide quick reporting and analysis for Owners to see firsthand how these programs impacted their operations and bottom lines,” said Jeff Carelli, senior vice president of Data and Analytics at PSCU. “This data is key for credit unions to leverage when determining the types of programs and initiatives they want to offer their members in the future.”
PSCU’s extensive analytics services and products leverage data from billions of transactions annually. The company’s industry-leading suite of advanced analytics tools, Member Insight, helps credit unions uncover the information they need to understand the performance, profitability, growth opportunities and risk mitigation in their credit, debit, bill pay and ATM portfolios.
About Advisors Plus
Founded in 2004, PSCU’s Advisors Plus offers consulting services for credit unions to help fuel growth and achieve financial and business goals. From project analysis to implementation and management, Advisors Plus offers an end-to-end portfolio of consulting services including business strategy, business and affinity cards, credit and debit cards, contact center optimization, risk and collections analysis, branch sales training, marketing services, and B2C campaign execution. Whether your credit union is looking to expand its offerings, build a legacy of community involvement, create the strongest possible capital footing—or all of the above—Advisors Plus consultants bring the strategic vision, deep industry expertise, and proprietary data analytics needed to help credit unions better serve their members and their communities. For more information, visit advisorsplus.com.
About PSCU
PSCU, the nation’s premier payments CUSO, supports the success of 1,500 credit unions representing more than 2.6 billion transactions annually. Committed to service excellence and focused on innovation, PSCU’s payment processing, risk management, data and analytics, loyalty programs, digital banking, marketing, strategic consulting and mobile platforms help deliver possibilities and seamless member experiences. Comprehensive, 24/7/365 member support is provided by contact centers located throughout the United States. The origin of PSCU’s model is collaboration and scale, and the company has leveraged its influence on behalf of credit unions and their members for more than 40 years. Today, PSCU provides an end-to-end, competitive advantage that enables credit unions to securely grow and meet evolving consumer demands. For more information, visit pscu.com.
