Amazon's big sale, or big fail?
While the social buzz regarding Amazon Prime Day on Wednesday, July 15, has been not so prime, early reports indicate the event was a success sales-wise. And industry experts said the event was important in other ways too.
“The event could be considered a success in the respect that it drove competition and online sales across the industry during a period that is not typically high volume,” said Traci Gregorski, VP, marketing, Market Track, a provider of market intelligence solutions. “For Amazon, if they are able to increase Prime memberships that will be the ultimate win, since those shoppers are higher value than non-members.”
Amazon’s daily sales in the U.S. were up around 80% as of noon Wednesday in New York and 40% in Europe, compared with a year earlier, according to ChannelAdvisor.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of new members who signed up on Prime Day, and our tens of millions of existing members for making our first ever Prime Day a huge success,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President, Amazon Prime. “Customers worldwide ordered an astonishing 398 items per second and saved millions on Prime Day deals. Worldwide order growth increased 266% over the same day last year and 18% more than Black Friday 2014 – all in an event exclusively available to Prime members. Going into this, we weren't sure whether Prime Day would be a one-time thing or if it would become an annual event. After yesterday’s results, we'll definitely be doing this again.”
The best-selling items included tablets, digital cameras, laptops, movies/TV shows, televisions, toys and video games, reported Market Track. As for the consumers who vented their disappointments about the quality of the offered deals, an analysis by Market Track adds fuel to their fire. Only 43 best-sellers (or 9.6%) were discounted by more than 10%, the company found. The worst discounts were in laptops, in which no best-sellers were discounted more than 10%.
Market Track’s Gregorski noted that Amazon may have erred in stressing price over other benefits.
“They may have missed an opportunity to emphasize some of the other benefits that come with Prime that actually differentiate them from straight price comparisons such as speed of shipping, video and music streaming, and photo storage,” he said
Social Media: The social media response to Prime Day probably did not meet Amazon’s expectations. According to data from Adobe, as of 4 p.m. ET July 15 Amazon Prime Day had 90,000-plus social mentions.
In comparison, Black Friday 2014 had 20 times more mentions during the same period, or 1.6 million. And while Amazon’s social mentions were up about 50% compared to the 30-day average, so were those of Wal-Mart, which ran a much-publicized rival sales event that did not require signing up for or belonging to a paid loyalty program.
According to Amazon.com, Prime Day highlights from the U.S. included:
Members ordered tens of thousands of Fire TV Sticks in one hour, making it the fastest-selling deal on an Amazon device ever
Fire tablet sales on Amazon exceeded sales on Black Friday last year
Members ordered thousands of e-readers and thousands of Echos in just 15 minutes
56,000 Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy sets
47,000 Televisions sold, which was 1300% year-over-year growth
51,000 Bose Headphones, compared to 8 the previous Wednesday
28,000 Rubbermaid 42-Piece Easy Find Lid Food Storage Sets, compared to 428 the previous Wednesday
24,000 Instant Pot 7-in-1 Programmable Pressure Cookers, compared to 182 the previous Wednesday
14,000 iRobot Roomba 595 Pet Vacuum Cleaning Robots, compared to 1 the previous Wednesday
12,000 Fifty Shades of Grey Unrated Edition on Blu-ray, compared to 121 the previous Wednesday
10,000 Meguiar's X2020 Supreme Shine Microfiber Towels, compared to 244 the previous Wednesday
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