Amazon.com customers who stayed up early Wednesday morning for initial Prime Day deals seem to be a tad underwhelmed.
Today is the first-ever Prime Day, a major online Black Friday-like shopping event created by Amazon to celebrate its 20th anniversary and reward Prime members with discounted products.
[Update: Despite customer complaints, Amazon says Prime Day order rates are surpassing Black Friday at peak times.]
However, a quick scan of the #PrimeDay tweets shows some customers frustrated with the first batch of deals.
https://twitter.com/wonnor_coods/status/621216793068216320
#PrimeDay literally looks like one huge-ass garage sale.
— go bruins :/ (@CarlosOnUCLA) July 15, 2015
I was less disappointed when my parent's divorced. #PrimeDay
— Ric Mendoza (@RicDoesStuff) July 15, 2015
I have 363 items saved for later in my cart. Dresses, shoes, books, etc. Not a single price dropped for this sale. How Sway?! #PrimeDay
— snobby brown (@hellomsrenee) July 15, 2015
I couldn't find the $115 40-inch TV, but I did stock up on tons of granny panties!!! #PrimeDay #grannypanties #SMH pic.twitter.com/XBQ5e4FKr9
— Jason Durrett (@zomdroidz) July 15, 2015
You can see my “Prime Exclusive Deals of the Day and Kindle Deals” below (click to enlarge), which sat in a row at the top of my Prime Day page with deals that lasted all day.
Some of these products include a pet vacuum robot (34% off), a lawnmower (40% off), and a 42-piece Rubbermaid set (40% off), which soon became a running joke on Twitter.
The refresh button isn't making the Tupperware disappear. #PrimeDay
— Charles Koh ⚡️ (@charleskoh) July 15, 2015
Now printing: t-shirts that read "I stayed up late for @Amazon #PrimeDay and all I got was Tupperware."
— Jackie Huang Linayao (@jackielinayao) July 15, 2015
Safe to say that @amazon pulled the 'best-internet-long-con' of 20 years.. Tupperware?? That's the deal? #HappyPrimeDay #primeday
— Mark Stuenkel (@mstuenkel) July 15, 2015
Couldn't take it anymore. Went ahead and bought the tupperware. Didn't wake up at 2am to buy nothing. #PrimeDay
— Jordan Haarmann (@JordanHaarmann) July 15, 2015
Some customers on the east coast that stayed up until 3 a.m. weren’t happy.
https://twitter.com/rachybecker/status/621219000157138944
https://twitter.com/ReignSixx/status/621220337053634560
As of 1 a.m. PT on Wednesday, there were only nine of the “Prime Exclusive Deals of the Day,” each available all day. Other products were grouped into four different categories: Top Prime-Exclusive Lightning Deals; Available Prime-Exclusive Lightning Deals; Upcoming Prime-Exclusive Lightning Deals; and Prime-Exclusive Savings and Sales.
Amazon let you sort by about 20-to-30 categories within each of these groups. I counted about 60 total products in the “Top Prime-Exclusive Lightning Deals” group; about 230 in the “Available Prime-Exclusive Lightning Deals” group; about 90 in the “Upcoming Prime-Exclusive Lightning Deals” group; and about 40 in the “Prime-Exclusive Savings and Sales.”
That’s a little more than 400 total products available in the first hour of Prime Day.
Amazon also offered other special deals, like $30 off the Kindle and $60 off the Fire HD7, a VIP trip to watch the Amazon-produced Transparent Season 2 premiere in Los Angeles, 35% off one grocery item, and a $10 Amazon gift card by simply signing into your Amazon account on Amazon’s mobile app.
There are also some good deals yet to be posted that Amazon promised, like a 32-inch LED TV for $75, a 50-inch 4K TV bundle for under $1000, and the Amazon Echo for $50 off.
We’ll see if the reaction changes as the day progresses, but for now, the initial response doesn’t seem great. It will be interesting to watch Walmart and other retailers who are rolling out their own discounts this week in response to Prime Day.
Disappointed at @amazon #PrimeDay guess to @Walmart it is
— pearl victoria (@Vicky19886) July 15, 2015