At the heart of Amazon's flywheel is Amazon Prime—a subscription service that includes a wide variety of perks such as discounts on select items, expedited shipping, and online videos, games, and music, to name a few.

The launch of Amazon Pharmacy in November 2020, along with a new Prime Rx benefit, simply adds another category for Prime members to try and may create even more shopper loyalty.

Moreover, in February, Amazon announced its further investment in the market with German-language original series, after introducing a TV package of over 38 channels from public broadcasters last year that is free for Prime members. Just like Amazon, Netflix is heavily investing in the market.

On today's episode, we discuss the pandemic challenges that fashion brands are facing, how female digital buyers have changed, and how social media strategies are evolving. We then talk about how engagement with brick-and-mortar retail is changing, how Walmart+ stacks up against Amazon Prime, how significant a problem porch piracy is, and whether in-garage delivery is the solution. Tune in to the discussion with director of marketing and ecommerce at Cloe Raquel Garduño Arroyo, eMarketer director of research Matteo Ceurvels, and analyst at Insider Intelligence Daniel Keyes.

We forecast that the number of US Amazon Prime households will reach 81.4 million in 2021, up 4.8% year over year (YoY). Put another way, nearly two-thirds (63.4%) of all US households will have an Amazon Prime membership this year. To put that in perspective, we estimate that in 2016, 44.8 million US households—35.6% of all households—had Amazon Prime.

In November 2020, every Prime member in the US was automatically enrolled in the Amazon Prime prescription savings benefit, with a discount card honored at 60,000 retail pharmacies, including Costco, CVS, and Walgreens. The cash-only program suggests savings of up to 80% off the price of a generic drug or up to 40% the price of a branded prescription medication.

Much of this growth is tied to Canada's ecommerce boom—retail ecommerce sales increased by 75.0% in 2020—as Prime Video viewers get free access to the service if they’re Amazon Prime customers. We anticipate Prime Video will rise from 10.7 million viewers in 2020 to 14.7 million by 2025. Prime Video is quickly gaining in subscription OTT share.

More video viewers turn to ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and free streaming options.