Amazon Prime Day Breaks Black Friday Sales Records

The Amazon Prime Day event, which was held on Wednesday, was considered a success by the e-commerce giant. The event celebrated the 20th anniversary of the company and sold more units compared to the biggest Black Friday event in history.

The company also revealed that it was the biggest number of new Prime member sign ups in a single day in its entire history. Amazon Prime vice president Greg Greeley said they were not sure whether it will be a one-time event or an annual event, but with the positive results, the company will hold the event again.

The figures were impressive since the event was limited to Prime members only. Prime members pay an annual fee of $99 and will receive a number of benefits, including free two-day shipping. International orders were 18 percent higher than the 2014 Black Friday event as 34.4 million items were ordered by customers living in Prime-eligible countries. It broke all records of Black Friday as 398 items were ordered for every second. Sales included 14,000 iRobot vacuum robots, 51,000 Bose headphones, and 47,000 television sets.

Amazon Prime Day Shows Impressive Numbers - image credit: forbes.com

ChannelAdvisor executive chairman Scott Wingo said the company was able to create a summer shopping holiday similar to Black Friday with the Amazon Prime Day event. Wingo added their expectations on the event were surpassed by Amazon.

Despite the impressive numbers of the Amazon Prime Day event, a number of customers took to social media to complain about the lack of in-demand deals during the event as well as the sold out status of numerous items. They claimed that Amazon merely wanted to clear out their inventory of unwanted stocks. The criticisms highlight the risks the company has to deal with when it creates random sale events instead of offering discounts during regular holidays.

I think @amazon should’ve named this the “useless crap we can’t get rid of sale” #PrimeDayFail. LOL

— Justin Seeley (@JustinSeeley) July 16, 2015

Bloomberg analyst Poonam Goyal said shoppers aiming to purchase electronics may have been upset with the “scattered discounts.” As other retailers thought about offering similar events to compete with Amazon, the event may become an annual sales event during the summer. It may also become the catalyst for an increase in the number of Prime members. A Prime membership is critical for the growth plans of the company since Prime customers have the tendency to spend more compared to ordinary customers. Despite the reactions, the company appears satisfied with the results of the Amazon Prime Day event.

Posted by Melanie Mendoza on Monday July 20 2015, 10:33 PM EST. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Shopping. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0