On any given day when I'm at home, it's not uncommon to see at least 5 grey Amazon vans delivering packages around the neighborhood. Sometimes, I'll even see them delivering packages to one house after another around the cul-de-sac, almost like a Jeff Bezos Santa Clause.
Of course, our family is no exception. We've been happy Amazon Prime members for about 4 years now. I'd estimate that we do 90% of our non-grocery shopping through Amazon. We also get a lot of value / entertainment out of watching Amazon Prime video.
This got me thinking - is everyone like us with our frequent Amazon buying, and how much do people usually spend in a given year on the platform?
How Much Do We Spend on Amazon?
According to this site, Prime members and non-members spend $1,400 and $600, respectively, per year on Amazon.
For us, it's quite easy to tally up how much we spend on Amazon since we use the Chase Amazon cash-back credit card almost exclusively for our purchasing on the site. I've been really satisfied with this credit card so far. It has no annual fee and gives 5% cash back on Amazon purchases for Prime members.
According to our annual credit card summary, we spent $7,952.15 on Amazon in 2019, about 6 times the Prime member average. Using our cash back card, we "earned" almost $400 in cash back from these purchases.
How Much is Too Much?
Although it's kind of shocking to see in ink that we spend ~$8k per year on Amazon, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I would expect that we do a much larger % of our total annual shopping/spending on Amazon than most people since we're pretty efficient with our money from a savings rate perspective. I suppose I would consider this "money well-spent" in a lot of ways.
Amazon: Easy Spending or Money Saving?
One cannot argue that Amazon is probably the easiest and most efficient place to buy something. Simply log in to the app or browser, find what you need, and purchase in two clicks with your savings payment method. With Amazon Prime offering no shipping fees and 2-day delivery, the item magically arrives before you know it!
Until recently with the price hikes on Amazon associated with people hoard-buying products, reducing supply, and driving prices up, I've felt like the prices on Amazon were very reasonable. It seems to be comparable to store pricing in our area.
Amazon Prime: Losing Its Competitive Edge as of Late?
With the changes in consumer purchasing behavior associated with the coronavirus, Amazon is really clear that shipments are taking longer than they used to. Along with decreased shipping speeds, it also seems like there are fewer Prime-eligible items and more items from private sellers charging really high prices. For example, I was just looking up pricing for those green Coleman 16 oz propane cylinders (the ones that are usually ~$4 each at Walmart) on Amazon, and private sellers were charging $50 for 4 of them! Crazy!
So, is Amazon losing its competitive edge as of late? Is this finally the time that Walmart can gain back some market share?
Unfortunately for Walmart, it doesn't seem that way so far. When shipping speeds or pricing on Amazon has been less than favorable, I've recently explored Walmart.com as a buying option. However, shipping speed at Walmart.com seems to be much slower than Amazon, and I find myself back on Amazon.com's website.
Another thing we've found recently is that Amazon seems to be quoting "worst-case" shipping dates when you purchase items lately. Things seem to be arriving at our house 4-5 days earlier than the Amazon-provided predictions.
***Photo courtesy of https://flickr.com/photos/catr/2443946244/in/
