CO-OP FINDS AMAZON PRIME DAY CREDIT TRANSACTIONS UP NEARLY 50 PERCENT AS CREDIT UNIONS PROMOTE TOP-OF-WALLET-STATUS

For Release on July 29, 2019:

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, California – Amazon Prime Day 2019 – 48 hours of discount shopping held mainly on July 15 and 16 – resulted in more than 175 million items sold, a figure that surpasses sales for the most recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Credit union card issuers benefited in a big way, as well, enabling even more Prime Day transactions than last year.

According to data collected and analyzed by CO-OP Financial Services, the number of 2019 Prime Day transactions inside the CO-OP credit card portfolio was up nearly 50 percent (48.55%) compared to the number of 2018 Prime Day transactions.

Additional stand-out findings of CO-OP’s analysis include:

• The number of debit transactions in the CO-OP portfolio was up 21 percent year-over-year.
• In addition, total dollars spent across both credit and debit was up 33 percent, indicating cardholders not only purchased more items, they spent more money as they clicked their way through Amazon’s deals. 

Amazon added more new Prime members on July 15 than ever before and reported it now has more than 100 million paying Prime members across the globe.

“Credit union issuers must take steps to engage the growing number of Amazon Prime members, as they represent a massive opportunity to secure top-of-digital-wallet status,” said Kaitlyn Summitt-Nelsen, Senior Portfolio Advisor and Card Marketing Strategist for CO-OP. “Credit unions owe it to their members to explain the benefits of selecting their card as the default on Amazon and other online retailers. Many of our partners are finding rewards and other promotions to be a great way to open that dialogue.”

For 2019 Amazon Prime Day, one of CO-OP’s credit union card issuers partnered with CO-OP’s SmartGrowth consulting team to offer a Spend-and-Get campaign that returned $10 cash back to the cardholder for every $100 spent on Amazon during the Prime Day event. Another is offering 2-percent cash back on all online purchases throughout the month of July. A third credit union is offering to pay one lucky member’s entire Amazon purchase, every day during the month of July.

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.

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 2019. The top-performing categories were:

• Books, up 50 percent from 2018.
• Specialty retail stores, up 84 percent.
• Computer/network services, up a whopping 184 percent.
• Subscription merchants, which includes Prime membership sign-ups, up 88 percent.

Interestingly, large digital goods, such as Echo, Kindle and Fire TV devices, saw a 44-percent decrease in activity.

Retail analysts predicted Amazon Prime Day would have a residual impact on the e-commerce sales of other major retailers, including Walmart, which hosted its “Summer Sale” during the same time as Amazon Prime Day. CO-OP data suggests those predictions were spot-on among credit union cardholders. Walmart.com purchases in the CO-OP portfolio were up significantly during the Prime Day window examined by CO-OP’s data analysts. For example, credit transactions at Walmart.com on July 15, 2019, were up more than 163 percent as compared to just one day earlier, July 14, 2019.

“It is interesting to see Amazon transform an e-commerce shopping holiday to an omni-channel extravaganza,” said Todd Clark, President/CEO of CO-OP. “The company not only stimulated online and mobile shopping, it pushed brick-and-mortar grocery bargains and even hosted a live (and streamed) kick-off concert. It’s clear the digital native sees value in evolving itself to become engrained in as many aspects of the consumer’s life as possible. As credit unions increase their command of digital delivery, they must be strategic about the interplay between physical, digital, experiential or other channels. Leveraging the expanding CO-OP ecosystem of payments solutions and the data they generate, we will continue to counsel our credit union partners on member preferences for engagement.”

To help credit unions optimize their credit card programs within their overall payments portfolios, CO-OP Financial Services has issued a new white paper, “How to Succeed in the Credit Card Business: A Blueprint for Credit Unions.” Credit union cards teams are encouraged to download the paper here.

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.

Contact:

Bill Prichard, APR, Director, Public Relations

CO-OP Financial Services

800.782.9042, ext. 3450