SEATTLE — Amazon reports that it sold more units on Prime Day Wednesday than on its biggest Black Friday ever. Triangle-based ChannelAdvisor said the Seattle retailer’s sales soared 93 percent, although some customers were less than impressed with the event.
Unlike Black Friday, however, with its loss-leader deals on giant TVs and other coveted items, the best seller in the U.S. on Amazon Prime Day was the discounted Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
Amazon created the event to celebrate its 20th anniversary and hyped it as bigger and better than Black Friday, although many customers complained online that it didn’t live up to the promotions.
Overall, Amazon says customers ordered 34.4 million items across Prime-eligible countries, breaking all Black Friday records with 398 items ordered per second. Prime Day was also a great savings day – members globally saved millions on deals. Customers ordered hundreds of thousands of Amazon devices – making it the largest device sales day ever worldwide.
Greg Greeley, vice president, Amazon Prime said in a statement that “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.”
It did get people talking online, pro and con. Adobe says mentions of Amazon were up 50 percent on social media networks over an average day.
Amazon says the event also produced its biggest sales day globally.
So what did sell well on Prime Day?
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
