How Much Money Does Amazon Make a Day and the Secrets Behind Its Earning Power

how much money does amazon make a day

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Table of Contents

Have you ever wondered, “How much money does Amazon make a day?”

Trust me, Amazon’s ecommerce sales figures might make you think of switching careers!

In this article, I’ll show you how much the online selling platform earns per day and other interesting facts like:

  • How much Amazon earns every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, and year
  • How much Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos earns
  • The e-commerce platform’s Prime Day revenue figures
  • How Amazon cashes in big time
  • What kinds of buyers purchase on the platform

Without further ado, let’s begin and get to know how much cash Amazon rakes in!

How Much Money Does Amazon Make a Day?

As per my latest update, Amazon makes an unbelievable amount of $1.29 billion per day. This equals to $52 million per hour or $896,000 per minute or $15,000 every second!

Could you imagine making such an amount?

If you compare that to the previous year, according to research firm Macrotrends, Amazon earned $116.44 billion for the past 12 months ending March 31, 2022.

The next question that’s probably running through your mind is, “How many orders does Amazon get per day?”

Though estimates of around 1.6 million packages delivered per day may fluctuate depending on many factors, Amazon customers enable the online retailer to rake in a lot of cash daily.

And you, too, can start selling on Amazon if you have the right tools and know-how.

How Much Does Amazon Make On Prime Day?

Amazon Prime Day is a special time of the year for around 200 million Amazon Prime members worldwide. On Prime Day, members enjoy discounts on their purchases, lightning deals, and other benefits.

Depending on many factors, the world’s largest online retailer makes between 5 billion and 11 billion dollars from Amazon Prime day.

How Much Money Does Jeff Bezos Make Per Day?

How Much Money Does Jeff Bezos Make Per Day infographic

Jeff Bezos went beyond the typical idea of selling at physical stores when he founded Amazon in 1994.

Though he started selling only books during those early days, the Amazon we know today sells so much more than tangible pages of text.

Through Bezos, shopping online has turned from science fiction to reality.

He just stepped down as CEO in 2021. But during his heyday, Bezos earned around $82,000 in base annual income (we know why). This exceeds the upper limit of an average American’s annual earnings of around $70,000.

From this information, his estimated daily earnings are around $220.

However, it’s important to note that the Amazon founder’s annual (and daily) earnings are not solely dependent on his Amazon business.

Jeff Bezos also makes money from the futuristic Blue Origin aerospace company and the Washington Post newspaper.

These multiple income streams led to Bezos having a net worth of around 130 billion dollars.

How Does Amazon Make Its Money?

Amazon’s growth rate has averaged around 27% for the past three years as of the time of writing. This was made possible partly due to its many income streams.

The question is, “How much revenue does Amazon get from its different income sources?”

To answer this, check out the following sections. Though the figures I will discuss are from 2020, the percentage breakdown of each revenue stream has changed little as of the writing of this article.

Breakdown of Net Sales Figures

Breakdown of Net Sales Figures infographic

According to Business of Apps, Amazon’s reported revenue will amount to $386 billion by the end of 2020. The website also highlights the breakdown of this figure into income streams and dollar values.

I was also able to compute the percentage contributed by each stream to total income.

Here is the breakdown of Amazon’s 2020 revenue:

1 – Online Stores: $197.2 billion (51.09%)

stores infographic

Online stores sell products that are either directly owned by Amazon or made for the ecommerce company by “private label brands.”

Around half of Amazon’s revenue comes from selling either physical products (a hardbound book, for example) or those in digital format (e-books, for instance) on the online marketplace.

2 – Earnings from Third Party Sellers: $80.4 billion (20.83%)

thrid party sellers infographic

Coming in a close second is Amazon’s revenue from third party sellers.

Unlike online stores where Amazon itself is the one selling products, third party sellers (3P sellers) are composed of individuals or SMB Amazon sellers (small and medium businesses) who are using Amazon as a platform to sell their merchandise.

Amazon 3P sellers promote and sell their products on what is known as Amazon Marketplace.

Amazon earns from these 3P sellers through commissions, part of shipping fees, etc.

3 – Amazon Web Services (AWS): $45.3 billion (11.74%)

aws infographic

Contrary to many people, Amazon is not just about online sales. It has Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud infrastructure and computing service.

AWS allows its subscribers to store many files or run programs without needing a large hard drive space and installing any type of software.

AWS is the third-highest source of annual earnings for Amazon, making up just over a tenth of the platform’s total revenue.

4 – Subscription Services: $25.2 billion (6.53%)

Any non-AWS subscription service falls under this income stream, including Amazon Prime membership fees and fees for access to digital content like digital video, audiobooks, digital music, etc.

5 – Physical Stores: $16.2 billion (4.20%)

Though the early days of Amazon were a sort of rebellion against physical stores, the online platform eventually diversified into brick-and-mortar stores in 2015.

Amazon operates around 600 of these stores in the U.S. Whole Foods Market, which Amazon bought in 2017, making up most of these establishments.

Amazon Fresh is another closely related business. Both “Whole Foods” and “Fresh” engage in food delivery services.

Though innovative for many reasons, Amazon’s physical store sales only make up one-fifth of what the platform earns from Amazon Marketplace 3P sellers.

6 – Other Services: $21.4 billion (5.54%)

Any Amazon service that doesn’t fall under the first five income streams mentioned is categorized under this segment. One example of this is advertising revenue from Amazon’s ad service.

Though not at the bottom of the ladder, other services make up a relatively more minor percentage of the platform’s annual earnings than online sales.

Who Buys From Amazon?

Knowledge is power, says the age-old saying.

It pays to know who you will sell to in case you either want to dip your toes into Amazon selling or increase your current retail sales figures on the platform.

Here are some interesting facts about consumers on Amazon, courtesy of TechJury and Fashion Network.

1 – Online shoppers spend more time on Amazon than on the other top 9 retailers combined.

time spent on ecommerce retailers infographic

2 – Millennials buy from Amazon twice as often as Baby Boomers.

infographic about millenials

3 – Around half of consumers purchasing from Amazon have annual salaries greater than $50,000 and have a college degree.

infographic showin Around half of consumers purchasing from Amazon have annual salaries greater than $50,000 and have a college degree

4 – Around 88% of consumers cite free shipping as one of the main reasons they shop on Amazon.

88% of consumers cite free shipping as one of the main reasons they shop on Amazon

5 – The Amazon customer market pie is more or less evenly divided between male and female consumers.

word image 45228 15

6 – Around 65% of those surveyed use Amazon to look for specific beauty brands (categorized under “personal care” on Amazon, a popular category)

Bottom Line

As Amazon continues to grow, I hope the interesting facts I discussed, along with other information on how Amazon earns and what sort of customers it attracts, will make you consider the option of earning money through ecommerce sales.

Since we want to help you every step of the way in your online selling journey, please let me know what other aspects of Amazon business operations or Internet-based sales you want us to tackle in the future.

Feel free to leave your questions, ideas, and suggestions in the comments section below.

Written by: Omar Deryan

Founder of OJ Digital Solutions

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