Having a successful ecommerce business requires a delicate dance of finding and converting new customers while retaining your existing customers. Although experts largely agree that retaining existing customers is cheaper than earning new customers, both are important. And in 2022 research conducted by Buy with Prime, “finding or identifying new customers” ranked in the top 10 priorities for surveyed merchants.
Given the crowded ecommerce space and the constant marketing noise shoppers encounter on a daily basis, it’s difficult—and costly—to stand out in the crowd. And even if you do manage to stand out enough to get attention, you then have to convince consumers who might have never heard of your brand to purchase something from your site. Consumers expect a lot from brands today, with ethical, quality, and economic shoppers all placing importance on different things. But one thing’s consistent across all shopper audiences: They want an easy, secure checkout, with fast, free delivery and easy returns.
According to Wunderman Thompson’s The Future Shopper Report, 70% of consumers said they wished that retailers and brands offered similar services to Amazon Prime. With Buy with Prime, more and more brands are doing just that directly on their ecommerce sites. Buy with Prime allows them to offer Prime shopping benefits, like free 1–2 day shipping and free returns on eligible items, on their own sites. It empowers ecommerce merchants to expand their omnichannel sales strategy beyond Amazon.com or simply double-down on their key sales channel.
Among benefits like simplifying fulfillment and boosting shopper conversion, Buy with Prime has also been helping merchants acquire new customers. In fact, merchants have seen that an average of three out of every four Buy with Prime orders were from new shoppers.* Although results vary by industry, product category, and merchant size, the following are just a few of the merchants that have seen customer acquisition benefits from using Buy with Prime.
- Travel bag company Sherpani saw an impressive 87% increase in new-to-brand customers after adding Buy with Prime to its site and running a promotional campaign. “One of the most exciting things Sherpani has noticed since launching Buy with Prime on our website is new customer acquisition—87% of orders that have been placed through Buy with Prime on our website are a customer’s first order from Sherpani.com,” says Alexis Beuning, DTC Sales & Brand Manager for Sherpani.
- Offering Prime shopping benefits directly on HydraLyte.com is helping give shoppers the confidence to complete a first-time purchase with the brand. An impressive 90% of HydraLyte’s customers that check out using Buy with Prime are customers that are completely new to the site. And 37% of all new customers started their HydraLyte purchase journey through Buy with Prime. “With this data in hand, it was very clear to us that Buy with Prime has a major impact on new customer acquisition,” says Emily Lease, Director of Ecommerce for HydraLyte. “That’s a big deal and exciting for us, because it’s moving new shoppers through the funnel faster, allowing us to remarket and increase lifetime value.”
- Looking for help increasing conversions on its ecommerce site, natural health company Enzymedica tapped retail and ecommerce accelerator Netrush, a Buy with Prime Partner. After Netrush added the Buy with Prime buy-now checkout to eligible SKUs on the brand’s site, Enzymedica saw an 81% increase in new-to-brand customers and a 34% increase in orders per visit. Furthermore, new customers grew at a faster rate than total customers after implementing Buy with Prime, with the share of customers new to the brand increasing 10.6 percentage points.
- In addition to increased shopper conversion, smart-home device maker Wyze has seen an increase in new customers checking out on its site. “New customer acquisition with Buy with Prime is significantly higher than our traditional DTC traffic that we get,” says Rob Johnson, Principal Ecommerce Leader at Wyze. “That increase in new customers is a significant benefit that we see with Buy with Prime because acquisition costs are something that you always want to look. So in terms of an acquisition strategy, it’s a great way to get customers that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.”
- The team at Catalina Crunch was interested in trying Buy with Prime to help boost credibility and trust with the brand. “When new folks who have never heard of us come to our site, they might decide that they don’t want to buy because they’re not sure,” says Nick Olson, Head of Growth for Catalina Crunch. “But if they see Buy with Prime, it’s a familiar name and they might be more likely to give us a try. It adds a layer of trust.” Conducting an A/B test from June 1 to July 15, 2023, using Social Ads for Buy with Prime, Nick found that 48% of the orders attributed to Buy with Prime ads on Instagram were Buy with Prime orders, and customer acquisition costs (CACs) were 20% lower for Buy with Prime creatives that point to Catalina Crunch’s Buy with Prime collection page than creatives without Buy with Prime.
- In addition to helping Catalina Crunch get set up with Buy with Prime and reduce the cost of acquiring customers, Buy with Prime Partner Power Digital has helped its other clients earn new customers and lower CACs. “Buy with Prime has been instrumental in helping our brands decrease their customer acquisition costs and increase the number of new customers coming to these brands, and therefore, increasing the opportunity for lifetime value for our brands,” explains Katie Davis, Associate Director of Retail Marketing at Power Digital.
- Buy with Prime has also helped bareMinerals stand out in the crowded beauty space and attract a higher volume of new customers. For shoppers who are new to the brand, Buy with Prime helps establish trust and allows the shopper to try a product without having to meet a minimum order threshold or worry about a complicated returns process. These benefits remove “any hesitation the shopper might have about the order,” says Carney Nir, Vice President of Ecommerce & Digital Experience at bareMinerals. “Beauty is so competitive, so it’s very easy for another new brand to swoop in and be the hot brand of the minute. So for us, Buy with Prime is helping us acquire new customers.”
Sign up for Buy with Prime today to see how offering Prime shopping benefits directly on your ecommerce site can help you increase new customer acquisition.
*Data is from a sample of 14 merchants with average monthly website traffic between 10K to 1.5M. “New shoppers” means shoppers who had not made a purchase on the merchant’s site since January 1, 2021 and completed a purchase using Buy with Prime.