How to Use Amazon Demographics: A Guide

When it comes to retail and eCommerce, having accurate data on your consumer demographics is vital. Who shoppers are, where they live, their age, and socioeconomic status impacts everything from the products they buy to the messaging they respond to.

For brands seeking to sell their products on Amazon, it’s practically impossible to maximize marketing spend, conversions, and sales without having a clear understanding of who their target consumer is. And, fortunately for brand owners, Amazon has recently given sellers access to demographic data via Amazon Brand Analytics report in Seller Central. 

Want to know what customers actually use Amazon and how can you leverage Amazon Demographics?  

In this guide, we’ll break down Amazon shopper demographics. 

Amazon’s Macro Demographics

Amazon is the king of eCommerce. In 2020, Amazon’s net sales were $386.066 billion, a 37.6% increase from 2019’s $280.52 billion. This revenue can be broken down into one of several service segments, including:¹ 

• Online stores – $197.35 billion
• Physical stores – $16.23 billion
• Retail third-party seller services – $80.46 billion
• Subscription services – $25.21 billion
• Amazon Web Services – $45.37 billion
• Other – $21.45 billion

Naturally, the United States is Amazon’s largest market, accounting for $263.5 billion in net sales and more than 45% of the U.S. entire eCommerce market share. This was followed by Germany with $29.6 billion, the United Kingdom with $26.5 billion, Japan with $20.46 billion, and the rest of the world for a total of 46.04 billion.¹  

As of June 2021, Amazon has experienced an average of 2.45 billion monthly visits to its website from both mobile and desktop users, making it the most visited retail site in the U.S. by a factor of 3x (eBay had 885 million monthly visitors).²  

Amazon Demographics – Prime Members

Today, more than 65% of Amazon shoppers pay to be Amazon Prime members. In just the U.S., this represents more than 153,000,000 people. 

In other words, nearly two out of every three adults in the country has an Amazon Prime membership.³ 

This paid subscription service costs either $6.49/month or $12.99/month and includes several benefits like music and video streaming, free two-day shipping, and exclusive deals. Naturally, Prime members tend to shop and spend more on average than non-Prime members. In 2019, Prime members spent an average of $1,400 annually compared to non-prime members $600 annually.⁴ 

Of the prime members, a 2019 survey found that 20% shopped a few times a week, with 7% of respondents saying that they shopped on a nearly daily basis. By category, the most popular item segments sold on Amazon were:³ 

• Electronics
• Apparel
• Footwear/jewelry
• Home & kitchen goods   

For each and every Amazon category, there’s a different buyer persona. While some goods such as electronics may be more universally bought across all demos, others such as jewelry have a more niche, targeted audience. 

Amazon Brand Analytics 

On average, the shoppers who spend the most on Amazon fall into the 45-65 age category. They tend to be college-educated, married, have a family, and an annual household income of $84,449.⁴ For such a buyer, the primary motivations for shopping Amazon are:⁵ 

1. Cheap prices
2. Free shipping 
3. Convenience

Generally speaking, this is good information for retailers to know. It paints a nebulous picture of who the typical Amazon customer may be. But those details can only take you so far. You need to delve further if you want to target consumers that are most likely to shop for each product category. 

Since Amazon’s goal is to connect buyers with sellers, the release of Amazon Brand Analytics to brand owners opened up an entirely new world of possibilities when it comes to targeted marketing and sales. Specifically, Amazon’s Demographics report shows:⁶

Brand Owners the breakdown of their Amazon customers (in aggregate) by age, household income, education, gender, and marital status. This information allows Brand Owners to assess the need for and success of targeted marketing campaigns and make product portfolio decisions based on customer penetration by demographic. This report is only available in the United States.

That said, not every seller has access to this information. You must be the brand owner and have successfully registered the product with the Brand Registry. And there are limitations on that as well. A product will need to have more than 100 or more unique customers in the given time period to be reported on. 

Amazon Demographic’s Report – Broken Down

As mentioned, Amazon’s demographic report provides a treasure trove of consumer data that brands can use to maximize their market spend. Users can access this information by following these steps: 

1. Log in to Amazon Seller Central 
2. Click on Reports 
3. Scroll down to Brand Analytics
4. Click on Demographics

The Demographic’s Portal 

The Demographics portal gives you the freedom to take a bird’s eye view of your total sales or boil things down. You have the ability to view by category, subcategory, brand, and reporting range. All metrics are visible in both table and bar graph form. Within the table, Amazon provides the following statistics: 

1. Demographic metric (you select)
2. The total number of unique customers who bought a product
3. The unique customers as a percentage of total customers 
4. Ordered product sales (adjusted for returns)
5. Ordered product sales as a percentage of total sales 
6. Total ordered units
7. Units ordered as a percentage of total

And when it comes to the demographic metric, you have five primary lenses to view your sales through.

Sales Per Age Group

Amazon breaks down sales per age group into six buyer segments: 

1. 18-24
2. 25-34
3. 35-44
4. 45-54
5. 55-64
6. 65+  

When it comes to demographics, few factors impact buyer decision-making and behavior as much as age. Effective marketing for a Gen Xer will look dramatically different from a Baby Boomer. Even if both segments want the same product, what a young shopper responds to may fall completely flat for an older generation. 

For instance, studies show that young buyers neither like nor respond well to traditional advertising.⁷ They do, however, respond well to personal recommendations—be they from their personal network, consumers on the internet, or influencers they support.  

Sales Per Household Income 

Amazon breaks down sales per household income into nine buyer segments: 

• <$50k
• $50k – $74,999
• $75k- $124,99
• $125k- $149,999
• $150k- $174,999
• $175k- $199,999
• $200k – $249,999
• $250k+

The socioeconomic status of a household can impact the price at which they purchase a product, or the products they prioritize when shopping. Brands can use this information to optimize pricing. 

For example, if a brand sees a dramatic drop-off in product sales between one income demo and the next, it may be a signal to lower the prices in order to incentivize more consumers to complete a purchase.   

Education Status 

Amazon breaks down education status into five tiers: 

• Less than high school
• High school graduate
• Some college
• Bachelor’s degree
• Graduate degree

Information about your consumers’ education levels can give you a general indicator of how you should craft messaging around a certain product. 

Sex

Men and women have different interests, purchasing habits, and marketing preferences. Some products are geared specifically for one of the two, whereas other products are sold to and for both parties. Understanding the typical buyer of your product helps you craft messaging that resonates.  

Along these lines, according to surveys and consumer data, there is a divide between men and women shoppers on Amazon:⁸ 

• Women like eCommerce shopping while men prefer brick and mortar locations 
• Men are less likely to use Amazon to price shop and bargain hunt
• Men prefer full-price retailers over discount off-price retailers
• Women prefer discount retailers over full-price brands  

Marriage Status 

Similarly, knowing whether a consumer is single or married will also impact how you market to them. Married couples and single individuals have different priorities when it comes to consumption patterns. 

On average, single people have more disposable income to spend on non-necessities. Additionally, they’re 45% more likely to engage in impulse shopping—which represents 40% of all eCommerce spend.⁹

Leveraging Amazon Customer Demographics with Power Digital

Demographic data isn’t the be-all-end-all. It’s difficult to put a unique individual into a box, especially when the categories of striation are limited. However, that data can be leveraged as a guiding map of sorts. It can be used to inform decision-making or tweak your marketing and sales strategy.

Armed with this data you can accomplish three primary tasks:

1. Build consumer personas
2. Craft more targeted ads
3. Optimize your sales funnel    

Do you need help getting the most value out of your Amazon customer demographics?

This is where Power Digital can help. Together, we can build an eCommerce marketing strategy that draws on consumer data and buyer behavior to create a message that resonates with your audience. 

What does that partnership look like? Learn more about our digital marketing services today! 

Sources:

1.  Statista. Global net revenue of Amazon from 2014 to 2020, by product group. https://www.statista.com/statistics/672747/amazons-consolidated-net-revenue-by-segment/
2. Statista. Leading e-commerce websites in the United States as of June 2021, based on number of monthly visits. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271450/monthly-unique-visitors-to-us-retail-websites/
3. Statista. Number of Amazon Prime Members in the U.S. https://www.statista.com/statistics/546894/number-of-amazon-prime-paying-members/
4. Business Insider. The average Amazon shopper still earns more than Walmart’s, and it reveals a key challenge for the e-commerce giant. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-shoppers-richer-than-walmart-2020-1
5. Epsilon. How to Win in the Amazon Era. https://img03.en25.com/Web/EpsilonDataManagementLlc/%7Bd07fa263-a086-4e35-b562-d2904676ed84%7D_Amazon_Infographic.pdf
6. Amazon. Demographics Report. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/PHCEMH5FFH32KG8
7. Forbes. Millennials Hate Ads But 58% Of Them Wouldn’t Mind If It’s From Their Favorite Digital Stars. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewarnold/2018/01/21/millennials-hate-ads-but-58-of-them-wouldnt-mind-if-its-from-their-favorite-digital-stars/?sh=27b02f0959ca
8. CNBC. Men aren’t willing to shop online as much as women, survey finds. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/19/men-arent-willing-to-shop-online-as-much-as-women-survey-finds.html
9. Invespcro. The State of Impulse Buying Persona – Statistics and Trends. https://www.invespcro.com/blog/impulse-buying/
10. Statista. Global net revenue of Amazon from 2014 to 2020, by product group. https://www.statista.com/statistics/672747/amazons-consolidated-net-revenue-by-segment/
11. Catalyst. Buying Power. https://www.catalyst.org/research/buying-power/