Forget about Cyber Monday and Black Friday. It was Prime Day that was the biggest day of sales for Amazon, not just for the year, but ever.
Despite some minor glitches and low expectations by some (even though Amazon said it was increasing the amount of deals to include more than 100,000 items in almost all categories), the second annual Prime Day was extremely successful for the online retailer, with customers placing 60 percent more orders worldwide and 50 percent more orders in the U.S. than last year.
Although Amazon did not reveal exactly how much it made it sales, analysts predict the retailer could have made up to $1 billion on Tuesday.
What is known is that Prime Day 2016 resulted in more sales than the holiday shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with the latter previously being known as being Amazon's biggest sale day of the year.
"We want to thank our tens of millions of members around the world for making this the biggest day in the history of Amazon," Amazon Prime VP Greg Greeley said, adding that the company will "definitely be doing this again."
Amazon revealed that it was the biggest day for sales on its devices globally, including the Fire TV Stick, Fire tablets, Kindles and Alexa-enabled devices, with sales up over three times compared with Prime Day 2015.
Out of these, the Fire TV Stick was the best-selling device. However, hundred of thousands of Kindle e-readers were sold, with Prime members saving over $1 million on Kindle Unlimited memberships on Tuesday and on the early bird sale on July 5. Prime Day was also the "biggest day ever" for the Amazon Echo.
More than 90,000 TVs were purchased, with two million toys and one millions pairs of shoes being sold. Other popular items included pressure cookers, the iRobot Roomba, Lenovo laptops and headphones.
This all comes even after some customers complained that they were unable to add discounted items to their shopping carts, but the problem was quickly resolved.
Customers weren't just buying items on their computers. Amazon said that over a million members used its app to not only shop, but also to watch deals. This resulted in more than two times the app orders as compared with last year's Prime Day.
Shoppers also made one Alexa-exclusive deal per second on average, using their voice.
Even though the hashtag #PrimeDayFail made its comeback on Twitter, customers were happier with Prime Day this year than with last year's event. Adobe Digital Insights tracked more than four million social engagements and found that sadness was down 26 percent and joy was up 43 percent compared with Prime Day 2015, where 50 percent of the sentiments was sadness.
After its success, Prime members can expect the day of sales to come back next summer.
Source: Amazon
Photo: Akira Ohgaki | Flickr
