Amazon survey explores the future of “Subscribe and Save”

Amazon offers a service called “Subscribe and Save” for many household goods, offering savings of 15% if you agree to receive deliveries on a regular basis (every month, 2 months, 3 months, or 6 months).

A recent survey sent to customers (via Jordan Golson) explores whether customers might be interested in potential future features, including:

• “I would subscribe to at least ____ if I could earn free Amazon Prime.”
• “I would be less likely to cancel a subscription if I received an additional __ savings for being subscribed longer than 6 months.”
• “I would subscribe to at least 5 products if I could earn an extra __ off my subscriptions.”

The idea of ordering household goods on a subscription basis makes sense. And if Amazon can bundle a bunch of discounted subscriptions with a Prime account — free 2-day shipping — it stands a chance to reliably steal a much higher percentage of household CPG spending than it gets today. (Not to mention all the other loyalty it probably sees from Prime members.)

Remember that e-commerce is still only around 4.5% of overall retail sales, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, so there’s a lot of room for Amazon to grow. Here’s a bonus chart, showing U.S. e-commerce sales as a percent of total retail sales. Coincidentally, the Q2 release of this data is scheduled for next Tuesday, Aug. 16.

Also: Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader: A nice complement, but not an app replacement