RANCHO CUCAMONGA, California – Amazon Prime Day 2018 – 36 hours of discount shopping held mainly on July 17 – recorded more than 100 million customer orders, making it a banner day for the e-commerce site, but also for the nation’s credit unions, according to data analysis by CO-OP Financial Services.
CO-OP performed a study of the e-commerce transactions of members who carry credit cards issued by CO-OP’s credit union clients, finding that:
- The number of 2018 Prime Day transactions inside the CO-OP credit card portfolio were up more than 41 percent compared to the number of 2017 Prime Day transactions.
- In addition, total dollars spent was up 61 percent, indicating cardholders not only purchased more items, they spent more money as they clicked their way through Amazon’s deals.
“Credit union issuers are paying more attention to Amazon Prime members, as they spend an average of $1,400 every year on Amazon alone,” said Deb Wieczorek, Director, Portfolio Advisory for CO-OP. “This is a critically important segment to engage as credit unions look to enhance their visibility with digital consumers. If it isn’t already, getting their credit union’s card loaded into Amazon as the preferred payment method should be a high priority for most cards teams. Now is an ideal time to partner with CO-OP’s SmartGrowth team to pursue that goal, as the holiday shopping season will be here before we know it.”
CO-OP’s 2018 and 2017 Prime Day analysis focused on one full day of transactions within each of the 36-hour Prime Days. The analysis compared e-commerce transactions occurring on July 17, 2018, to e-commerce transactions occurring on July 11, 2017.
CO-OP’s analysts said some of the year-over-year Prime Day increase is due to growth in the number and size of credit unions that process with the company. CO-OP’s data team also found in each of the last two years, the number of Amazon transactions jumped almost 23 percent on the first full day of the Prime Day holiday as compared to the day immediately preceding it (July 10 in 2017; July 16 in 2018).
Looking deeper into the data, CO-OP’s analysts were able to identify the types of Amazon purchases that occurred most frequently throughout Prime Day 2018:
- The top-performing categories were books; large digital goods, such as Echo, Kindle and Fire TV devices; computer/network services; specialty retail stores; and continuity/subscription purchases, which is a category that includes Prime membership sign-ups.
Retail analysts predicted Amazon Prime Day would have a residual impact on all e-commerce sales, and CO-OP data suggests they were correct. Online purchases in the CO-OP portfolio that did not occur within Amazon were up 24 percent as compared to the day before Prime Day 2018.
“Amazon Prime Day was a win for the credit union movement and demonstration of the importance of credit union members in our economy,” said Todd Clark, President/CEO of CO-OP. “Digging into the Prime Day data allows us to see how events like this impacts our businesses, and provides a key to understanding how to compete in a rapidly-transforming digital environment.”
About CO-OP Financial Services
CO-OP Financial Services is a payments and financial technology company whose mission is ensuring the success of the credit union movement. CO-OP payments solutions, engagement services and strategic counsel help credit unions optimize member experiences to consistently provide seamless, personalized multi-channel offerings, while delivering secure, sophisticated fraud mitigation service. For more information, visit www.co-opfs.org.
