Wednesday turned out to be a Prime Day for Amazon… to hold a garage sale.
That was pretty much the sentiment of Amazon shoppers who turned to social media and voiced their frustration about Prime Day, which Amazon had built up as a shopping holiday with “more deals than Black Friday.”
On Facebook, customers commented on Amazon’s Prime Day posts with complaints about their Prime Day experience. Even when Amazon changed its cover photo early Thursday morning, the complaints kept coming:
Have a ball this summer! http://amzn.to/summerfun
Posted by Amazon.com on Wednesday, July 15, 2015
And on Twitter, Amazon customers got snarky (see more of the tweets here):
Pretty much how it’s been on #PrimeDay #PrimeDayFail pic.twitter.com/n0QSXldKIm
— Bryan Beal (@bryanrbeal) July 15, 2015
A summary of how I feel about #PrimeDay @amazon #PrimeDayFail pic.twitter.com/fG7yAS5YMu
— Ani-Mia (@AniMiaOfficial) July 15, 2015
And while Amazon’s claim of more deals than on Black Friday – and claimed Prime Day to be a success in a midday press release – shoppers, overall, were not impressed with them. Apparently though, if you needed a VHS tape rewinder for your trip back to 1993, or 55 gallons of water based lube, or you are a serial killer, Prime Day was your lucky day.
“Prime Day peak order rates have already surpassed 2014 Black Friday,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President Amazon Prime, in a press release issued at 3:30 p.m. EDT. “Prime members have already bought tens of thousands of Fire TV Sticks, 35,000 Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray sets, 28,000 Rubbermaid sets, and 4,000 Echo devices in 15 minutes. The Kate Spade purse was gone in less than a minute. We also sold 1,200 of the $999 TVs in less than 10 minutes. And there are thousands more deals coming.”
But denial may be a river that runs through Amazon’s Seattle headquarters: Kurt Heinemann, CMO of 1-to-1 personalization firm Reflektion, says Prime Day is a huge missed sales opportunity for Amazon.
[TAKE OUR SURVEY: How Has Prime Day Affected Your Ecommerce Sales?]
“Looking at Prime Day from the shopper’s perspective, it seems Amazon is basically selling a bunch of old inventory stock that’s been piling in their warehouse,” Heinemann said. “You don’t see some of the trademark Amazon personalization elements, which is unfortunate because shoppers are stuck looking at irrelevant and even sold out inventory. This day is a lost sales opportunity for Amazon to capitalize on the extra traffic by cross-selling and intelligently promoting products that are not on sale.”
Multichannel Merchant ran a poll on Survey Monkey to ask consumers how their Prime Day experience went. Here’s the results, based on 30 answers:
But Prime Day wasn’t a bad day for Amazon marketplace sellers. For example, Tech Armor, which sells screen protectors and accessories for mobile devices, said in an email to Multichannel Merchant that it was having a record sales day on Prime Day.
“We have already sold as much Tech Armor as we would have on Black Friday and there are tons of deals on our best selling Tech Armor products all day today,” said Joseph Jaconi, Co-Founder and General Manager of Tech Armor. “We could not be happier with the results.”