Late Deliveries May Hurt Shipping Club Member Renewal Rate

To shipping club members, online delivery matters. So much so that unsatisfactory shipping times may lead to membership cancellation.

According to a survey conducted by Bizrate Insights, 43 percent of shipping club members – with the most popular memberships being Amazon Prime (28 percent of all respondents) and Barnes & Noble (5 percent of all respondents) – reported that they may not renew their memberships. Nearly a quarter of that group (9.7 percent of all shipping club members) said it was specifically due to late package deliveries in December 2014.

A notable find in Bizrate’s study was that free trial members of shipping clubs are more prone to cancel – 73 percent, in fact, compared to 31 percent of paid members. Of those who may not renew, the Bizrate study revealed that 24 percent of free trial members may not renew due to late deliveries, while 22 percent of paid members cited the same reason.

Bizrate undertook a further examination of responses by Amazon Prime members, who represent 74 percent of shipping club memberships. It found that not only did 21 percent of Prime members report receiving a package late, but the number may in fact be 50 percent higher, given that 31 percent of respondents agreed that some of their items ordered through Amazon Prime arrived in more than two days. These numbers were higher than average amongst Generation Y, of whom 26 percent reported at least one Amazon Prime order arriving late in December 2014 and 35 percent reported that some of their Prime items arrived in more than two days.

Late delivery was also of notable importance to Amazon Prime members. Out of 41 percent of Prime members considering non-renewal, 9.6 percent (about a quarter) were considering non-renewal specifically due to late deliveries.

According to the Bizrate study, 26 percent of December 2014 Amazon Prime members report that their membership was under a free trial.