Amazon rolled out thousands of sales today for the first-ever Prime Day, and already it’s shaping up to be a blockbuster event for the Seattle retailer.
In an update this morning, Amazon said “peak order rates” have already surpassed Black Friday, which falls the day after Thanksgiving and is typically the biggest shopping day of the year.
An Amazon spokesperson said: “Prime Day peak order rates have already surpassed 2014 Black Friday,” but it’s unclear whether those rates will continue throughout the day, and if sales will actually exceed Black Friday.
UPDATE: ChannelAdvisor’s Executive Chairman Scot Wingo, who helps third-party retailers manage various marketplaces, like Amazon, said they are seeing similar trends. Based on their data, sales are up 40 percent in Europe and 80 percent in the U.S., compared to the same day a year ago.
“We’ve been averaging year over year growth in the ~25% range, so this is a significant jump that we are already seeing mid-day,” Wingo said, in an emailed statement.
The sale is unusual in that it is only available to Prime members, who spend $99 a year to be part of the two-day shipping program. Customers were also given the option of signing up for a 30-day trial.
In particular, Amazon said Prime members have bought tens of thousands of Fire TV Sticks, 35,000 Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray sets, and 28,000 Rubbermaid sets. The company sold 4,000 Echo’s in 15 minutes, the Kate Spade purse was gone in less than a minute, and the 1,200 of $999 TVs sold out in less than 10 minutes.
New deals will start every ten minutes until late tonight, so customers will have to keep returning to the site to see if there’s something they want.
Customers have had mixed opinions when it comes to the selection of products for sale, and some have even been disappointed. To be sure, many of the highly sought after items, like the Amazon Echo and cheap TVs, which have sold out in minutes. Some customers wonder how many items were in stock, while others questioned the quality of the deals and whether the items were of much value even on sale.
As we reported earlier, 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
