Research: Food retailers should target Amazon Prime members Supermarket News Byline: Julie Gallagher Food retailers should actively engage Amazon Prime members who, according to market research firm GfK research, visit online retail websites more frequently than non-Prime members who use a smartphone, says Christina Pate, senior research director of digital experiences for GK. "Prime members are overall heavier online shoppers, so we tracked Prime and non-Prime members over a five-month period and found that Prime members are spending five more hours and visiting 50 more online shopping businesses than non-Prime members, and this extends to grocery categories. For grocery categories, Prime members were more likely to access grocery websites and apps as well." Amazon Prime's subscriber base is estimated to be between 65 million and 80 million, with Amazon generating $6.4 billion in revenue from these shoppers, according to Pate. Fifty-nine percent are female and four in 10 (40%) are ages 55 and older, 36% are 35 to 54 years old and 24% are ages 16 to 34. When it comes to Income, 29% of Prime members fall into the more than $100,000 range. Thirty-seven percent fall between $50,000 and $99,000 and 34% earn less than $50,000. Over the course of the five-month research period, Amazon was the most used shopping touch point with 78% of Prime users visiting the site and/or app versus 72% of non-Prime members. Thirty-two percent of Prime users visited grocery websites and/or apps compared to 25% of non-Prime members. One-third of Prime users (33%) visited wholesale club sites and/or apps compared to 26%% of non-Prime users. When it came to visits to mass merchant sites and apps, 63% of Prime members made visits versus 68% of non-Prime members. Prime members showed a preference for mass merchant apps as opposed to mobile websites, with visit frequency being three times higher for apps. Pate noted that given the online presence of Prime users, food retailers should enhance their apps and target these shoppers in other ways. "Prime membership will continue to grow as Amazon keeps adding more benefits," she said. "There are opportunities for other retailers to engage these online shoppers into their own programs and apps regardless of Prime membership, Prime members still use mass retailer apps so they're not necessarily just dedicated [exclusively to Amazon]. They're also more likely to visit apps and sites of club stores who require membership, so those who participate in Prime may be more inclined to also take part in clubs." Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2017 Penton Media, Inc, Penton Business Media, Inc. and their subsidiaries: All Rights Reserved. http /www.penton.com/Chapter 3 discusses problem formulation and discovery-oriented and strategy-oriented decision problems. The article suggests that food retailers should target Amazon Prime members, citing results from research as evidence. This article references research conducted by a research provider, GfK. Who was the most likely client or client type to commission this research? Based on the research findings, what was the likely manager's decision