My experience with Amazon Shopper Panel

I wrote about Amazon Shopper Panel before. The program is on an invite-only basis. Essentially, participants upload 10 non-Amazon receipts (Whole Foods transactions aren’t counted either) every month to earn $10 in Amazon balance and have an opportunity to earn more by completing surveys. In my post, I wrote about the immense applications that can come from this initiative. This time, I want to update you with more details on the program. I myself received an invitation back in February 2021. If you are selected, you will receive an email like this

The app is fairly simple. The first tab gives the user an overview of how much in rewards he or she has earned so far every month. The second tab is where receipts can be uploaded while the third tab houses all the surveys that Amazon wants you to complete. There are other routine sections such as FAQ, Contact Us, Legal Information and Sign Out that are tucked in a window that will open once you touch the three-dot symbol.

Receipts can be uploaded via a phone camera. Based on my experience so far, the app is fairly receptive towards even wrinkled receipts and those that have small tears. Email receipts are qualified, as long as they are sent to receipts@panel.amazon.com from the same email that a participant uses to register an account. I got a car wash voucher from a dealership a while back and used it at a random fuel station in Omaha. The receipt from the car wash was still accepted, much to my surprise, because it didn’t have any card information. Since February 2021, I completed two surveys and received 25 cents for each. The surveys featured only one question each time and it was pretty basic such as, I paraphrase here, “where did you get information for your online purchases?”.

Since starting to use the app, I have paid attention to how receipts differ from one another in terms of structure and layout. The computational process used to digest these receipt images will have to be pretty sophisticated to handle the intricacies and variety in how receipts are printed and captured. If Amazon can gain this ability to read images, it can be applied to other parts of their retail business.

Even if receipts are input by humans, the intelligence that Amazon may gain from this initiative will open up a lot of opportunities:

• Design new private label products
• Court other retail partners with unprecedented and reliable data
• Support their ads business
• Upsell current customers by understanding them better

My expectation is that Amazon will select enough folks from different backgrounds to join this effort. The participants have to be representative of consumers in America in terms of age, race, income and gender. Plus, the pool has to be big enough and the time period should be long enough so that the data can be statistically significant. As a result, at $10/participant/month, this initiative can reach 6 figures pretty fast. If the time and resources dedicated to the analysis task are factored, the expense will rise even higher. To other smaller retailers, the technical and financial barriers are not easy to overcome. To other retail giants like Walmart, I am surprised not to see a similar effort from them. This is the type of initiative where if your rival gains the first mover advantage, it will be a tall order to claw it back.

In life, there are skillsets which are very difficult to gain, but once mastered, can offer long-term leverage in various aspects of our life. Think: sales, writing, coding, human languages, cooking, fitness. In my opinion, this initiative belongs to the same category. If it proves to be successful, Amazon Shopper Panel can arm Amazon with intelligence and capabilities that are going to lift the company to even greater heights.

Disclosure: I have a position on Amazon and Walmart in my personal portfolio.