Amazon: Prime Day orders up 50% in U.S.
Hailing it as its "biggest day ever," Amazon says customer orders during the shopping event Prime Day were up more than 50% in the U.S. compared to last year.
In a statement released Wednesday, Amazon says worldwide orders surged more than 60%. This is the second year Amazon has hosted the event for consumers subscribed to its Prime service.
"We’ll definitely be doing this again," said Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime, in a statement.
Prime Day launched last year as a shopping holiday similar to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Singles Day, the massive shopping event in China that helped retailer Alibaba rake in $14.3 billion in sales.
The higher sales aren’t surprising given that this time around consumers had a better idea of what to expect. Last year’s Prime Day was the first and confusing to some customers.
“Sequels always draw lots of people,” said retail analyst Charlie O’Shea of Moody’s.
This year’s sale was also much better managed and constructed. Amazon didn’t run out of items and the promotions ran longer, he said.
In addition, Amazon did an excellent job of publicizing the event across social, email, online and mobile in addition to have several days of lead-up sales to prime the pump, said Traci Gregorski, senior vice president of marketing at Market Track, a research firm that helps retailers with pricing and advertising strategies.
The offerings were also better, she said.
“More electronics, TVs, wearables, toys and video games made it more closely aligned to what people have come to expect during big retail events like Black Friday,” she said.
Amazon says the Fire TV stick was its best-selling device. Overall, sales for Amazon devices such as the Echo, Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets, tripled from last year's Prime Day.
Prime members had exclusive access to deals on movies to rent or purchase for streaming on the Amazon Video app. The three most popular titles were Deadpool, Kung Fu Panda 3 and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise in San Francisco
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.