Retail bankruptcies have jumped 24 percent year-over-year and consumers are increasingly favoring online and mobile shopping as retail brands try to grapple with headwinds ahead of the important holiday shopping season.
Much of this evolving retail landscape is attributed to the enormous impact of Amazon, which has more than 310 million active shoppers worldwide and $136 billion in U.S. sales.
However, a new report from SmarterHQ, the leading multichannel behavioral marketing platform, shows cracks in Amazon’s armor that retail brands can exploit to start stealing market share back from the e-commerce behemoth.
SmarterHQ’s survey of more than 1,200 people ages 18 to 65+ shows that without free two-day shipping, 82 percent of Amazon Prime users said they would cancel their membership.
“Amazon’s dominance in retail has been the primary focus of retail executives, investors, and board members – yet, the solution to steal back both market share and consumers’ loyalty have evaded most traditional retail brands,” said Michael Osborne, CEO of SmarterHQ. “But our report tells a surprisingly upbeat story for retail brands – consumers can be persuaded to ditch Amazon and shop in their store or on their web site. We found that people aren’t going to Amazon to browse; rather, they have very specific items in mind. Free two-day shipping is very important to Amazon Prime members – so much, in fact, that they would cancel their membership if it wasn’t offered. And consumers have a price threshold of $200 they’re not willing to cross when shopping on Amazon, a good sign for luxury brands. While Amazon is viewed as Goliath by the industry, there are certainly weaknesses that retail brands can exploit to help drive their bottom line.”
To review all of the survey findings and additional tips that retail brands should consider to better compete with Amazon, you can download the report, “The Amazon Report: Consumers Share How Brands Can Win Them Back,” here.
