Amazon Reportedly Testing 'Buy Again' Tactic To Lure You Into A Spending Loop As Prime Sign-Ups Slow Down

E-commerce behemoth Amazon.com Inc. AMZN has been reportedly testing a new feature on its app designed to convince existing customers to make repeated purchases to increase its revenue. 

What Happened: The new feature, dubbed “Buy Again,” appears to be Amazon’s latest strategy to retain and engage its customer base. 

The feature uses a dedicated tab on the app’s homepage, where it offers tailored product recommendations — from groceries to electronics, reported the Wall Street Journal, citing market intelligence firm Watchful Technologies. 

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The “Buy Again” feature aims to leverage customers’ buying history to increase revenue amid reduced disposable income. However, it is unclear how Amazon will modify the feature before its full-scale launch.

This initiative comes as Amazon seeks to address declining growth in Prime memberships and reduced spending from its users. Recent data indicates a slowdown in Prime sign-ups, and both Prime and non-Prime members appear to be spending less per order compared to previous years.

According to the data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, there has been a decrease in average annual spending by Prime members from $1,400 in 2018 to $1,100 last year. Non-Prime members have also reduced their average spending from $600 to $500 annually, the report noted. 

Besides “Buy Again,” Amazon is experimenting with other methods to encourage repeat purchases, such as order history-based notifications from its Alexa assistant.

Why It’s Important: Amazon has kicked off its fall sale for Prime members, hoping to take advantage of what’s expected to be a quieter holiday shopping season.

Online sales in the U.S. are predicted to go up by about 4.8% to reach $222 billion in November and December. While this is a bit higher than last year, it’s still much less than the growth witnessed before the pandemic.

Consumers are dealing with rising prices for things they buy, more debt, and less money saved up, making them careful about spending.

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