Why Gen Z did NOT shop on Amazon Prime Day
With Prime Day wrapped up, we were curious - did Gen Z’ers actually shop then? I mean, with all the recent (and old) controversy surrounding Amazon and the rich guy Jeff, is all of the noise impacting financial returns for Amazon?
1. Social Listening
Let's talk about Amazon, the one-stop-shop for everything that delivers packages in the blink of an eye. In 2020, Amazon was “claimed to be” one of Gen Z's favorite brands (Boomers and millennials both love Apple and Amazon), but we’re here to provide a fresh, different, and perhaps more accurate perspective.
Let's start with Jeff. CEO Jeff Bezos has been dominating social media headlines, with people mocking the absurd amount of money he makes and criticizing his brand. #jeffbezos on tik tok has 442.2M views.
A TikTok sound was created called "Bezos I" with a thread of amazon and Bezos-related jokes, pulling in over 22,000 videos using this sound.
To top it off, Bezos is going into space and people literally want to leave him there. A petition on Change.org entitled "Do Not Allow Jeff Bezos to Return to Earth" has a total of 140,537 signatures as of June 30th. The creator of the petition, Ric Geiger wrote "Billionaires should not exist...on earth, or in space, but should they decide the latter, they should stay there."
And all of this recent Amazon and Jeff hate has led up to this year’s Prime Day. Amazon promoted the online event with a Prime Day show featuring Billie Eilish (@billieeilish), H.E.R. (@hermusicofficial), and Kid Cudi (@KidCudi). The show was a three-part series presented by Amazon music on Prime video. On Instagram, the comments related to the event were extremely negative and millennial-dominated. From what we observed, Gen Zers did not engage with Amazon's content and did not seem to care about the Prime Day Show. 41% of people who watched the series rated it 3 stars or below with people saying it was trash, not interesting, and lousy (Prime Day Show).
Environmental Impact
In no recent news, Amazon’s environmental impact has continued to catch the eye of Gen Zers. While one-day shipping seems amazing, in turn, it has harmful impacts on the planet. In 2018 Amazon emitted 44 million metric tons of C02 (#BoycottAmazon). Since they are trying to get products to consumers quickly, they use packaging which is too big for products. This generates extra waste, such as plastic that ends up in oceans and landfills (#BoycottAmazon).
Working Conditions
The depth of the Amazon controversy extends into their unfair treatment of workers and inhumane working conditions (#BoycottAmazon). On Prime Day workers are subjected to intense physical labor with short breaks, but this is not uncommon. Workers at Amazon warehouses across the country have voiced their struggles saying they get few bathroom breaks, are held to excessive productivity goals, and unsafe work environments (Amazon workers can still fight for better conditions, even if union efforts fail). In 2020, for every 100 Amazon warehouse workers, there were 5.9 serious injuries, which is 80% higher than serious injuries at non-Amazon warehouses (Amazon warehouse workers injured at higher rates than those at rival companies). These struggles were heightened by the pandemic because people turned to delivery as their go-to option. Workers were unable to get paid sick leave, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Between a hatred for Jeff and billionaires, their negative environmental impact, and horrible working conditions, Amazon certainly has caused some controversy for Gen Z. Is it enough to cause us to change our shopping behaviors? Does controversy outweigh the convenience?
We asked if Gen Zers shopped on Amazon Prime Day.
2. Research from The Loop
74% said no and 26% said yes.
Out of our 1486 responses, 1102 said they shopped on Amazon Prime Day. This response took the majority with 74% of Gen. Z's feeling this way.
We polled the 1486 respondents through The Loop, our community of Gen Zers spread across the nation of different backgrounds, ages, genders, and ethnicities.
3. The question is, why is this Gen Z's response?
From our research, 3/4 of Gen Z did not participate in Amazon Prime day. The Amazon controversy has fueled us to take a deeper dive into a new, yet powerful generational dilemma. For Gen Z, we build our identity through choice. It's why many of us have such strong stances on environmentalism, anti-capitalism, equity + more. Yet what happens when we are confronted with two powerful and contradicting forces that drive our behavior; controversy and convenience. What will we side with, and how will we respond? We believe this Amazon Prime Day outing (or the lack of one) is a potential signal that for Amazon, controversy outweighs the convenience. It is a sign that brands of all sizes, no matter how dominant, need to begin adapting their practices to serve truer, more altruistic purposes in this world. Otherwise, they risk losing our generation and the ones to come.