Amazon Prime Day: Big Sale Or Big Fail?

Amazon Prime Day on July 15 was supposed to be a members-only Black Friday, featuring blockbuster deals that aimed to boost subscriptions to the $99 annual service offered by the online retail giant.

However, reports reveal that Amazon Prime Day did not fully live up to the intense hype surrounding the one-day event, as the hashtag #PrimeDayFail became one of the top trending topics on Facebook.

Angry Amazon Prime subscribers complained about uneven selection of items for sale, sold-out products and long wait lists to make purchases.

Adobe, which tracked the sentiment of shoppers on social media over the entire Amazon Prime Day, found that the one-day event failed in reaching the buzz annually generated by the shopping frenzy-inducing Black Friday.

As of 1 p.m. EST, 10 hours since the start of the sale, "Amazon Prime Day" was mentioned in social networks about 90,000 times. This was 20 times less compared to the mentions of "Black Friday" on that day last year.

Worse than the dwindled hype is that the analysis of Adobe revealed that 50 percent of the sentiments on social media related to Amazon Prime Day related to sadness, with most of the disappointment focused on what customers saw as bad sale items such as "socks, microfiber towels and Adam Sandler movies."

The event was not a total failure though, as Adobe found that 23 percent of sentiments related to joy, with a few users expressing their happiness for great deals through Twitter and Facebook. In addition, 19 percent of sentiments related to admiration and 8 percent related to surprise.

Sales and data acquired from the back-end revealed the figures behind the disappointing sale. Clavis Technologies was able to track the availability of in-demand items through the countdown information that was posted by Amazon beneath the popular products.

By noon in the East Coast, the e-commerce company saw that 91 percent of Kindles have been sold, with the voice-powered Bluetooth speaker Echo as well as Fire TV Stick device, both by Amazon, already depleted of their stocks.

By 2 p.m., Clavis calculated that 40 percent of the "lightning deals" of Amazon Prime had sold out, with the waiting lists already beginning to pile up.

While product availability and the selection of items to be put up for sale were disappointing, customers that were able to purchase items on sale got them with great discounts. By 4 p.m. EST, the average discount enjoyed by customers was at 45 percent, with the best deals on TV shows and movies with an average of 57 percent off and mobile phones and accessories coming in at a close second at 56 percent off.

However, with all the hype that Amazon built up for Amazon Prime Day, the event was certainly a losing situation for both the company and its Amazon Prime subscribers.