Amazon makes billions from drunk 'customers'

Online customers who are drunk spend 440 dollars every year on purchases they don’t remember the day after. In the US alone, the industry makes an annual 48 billion dollars from that, most of it for Amazon.

Hangovers with bills

Drunk online shopping is a more common occurrence than you might think. That was the conclusion of a poll at TheHustle with 2,174 Americans who have a tendency to drink too much. Almost four out of five (78% of the men, 80% of the women) admits to having made purchases when drunk and not remembering them the next morning. Until they receive a confirmation mail of their order, that is…
 

On average, the amount spent was 444 dollars (396 euros) per person. Apparently people who have had too much to drink mostly spend money on clothes (66%), movies and games (both 47%) and technological products (46%).
 

An interesting sidenote: only one in five of these “unintentional” purchases are returned afterwards. Most people keep what they bought and pay for it. Whether out of shame or because they really do like the product, we don’t know.

Amazon is the biggest winner (of course)

Knowing that about 138 million people regularly consume alcohol in the US alone, TheHustle calculated that the “drunk purchases market” is worth about 45 billion dollars every year in the US alone (about 40 billion euros).
 

Unsurprisingly, Amazon is the biggest winner, being the most popular internet platform: as many as 85% of those involved bought something from the e-commerce giant after too much alcohol. Ebay (21%) and Etsy (12%) are numbers two and three. Supermarket chains Target (9%) and Walmart (5%) are next in line.