Amazon moves record number of units on ‘Prime Day’

Seattle--Call it Amazon’s attempt to have a “Christmas in July”-type event without calling it that, a chance to sell off unwanted merchandise at low prices during a time of year when business generally is slow for retailers.

Or, call it what Amazon did: “Prime Day,” a global shopping event said to offer more deals than Black Friday to Prime members, those Amazon shoppers who pay $99 a year for free shipping and other benefits. (Amazon regularly offers a 30-day free trial membership to Prime, which means those who were not already members could shop on Prime Day too.)

Amazon said Thursday that it sold more units on Prime Day, which took place Wednesday, than its biggest Black Friday ever, moving 34.4 million items, or 398 items per second.

Products highlighted as being particularly hot sellers included 51,000 Bose headphones, compared to just eight the previous Wednesday, and 12,000 copies of the Fifty Shades of Grey Blu-ray DVD (unrated version, naturally), compared to 121 last Wednesday. No jewelry was included on the list.

While Amazon also said that Prime Day was a “great savings day,” one thing it did not say was exactly how much money it made during its day-long sales event Wednesday. And the e-tailer also faced a lot of online criticism about its mid-summer sales event.  

Using the hashtag #PrimeDay or even #PrimeDayFail, people took to Twitter to voice their unhappiness with the sale. The much-maligned shopping day even spawned a Twitter account, @PrimeDayFail.

Many people tweeted about the quality and selection of goods offered, with some likening Prime Day to a garage or yard sale or Craigslist.

And of course...#PrimeDay was the equivalent of a warehouse garage sale. https://t.co/IEChKt0eDN

— Eric Park (@ericpark94) July 16, 2015

The marketing for #PrimeDay was on point. The sale itself was much like a yard sale full of overpriced family heirlooms.

— Jacqueline Susmann (@JackieSusmann) July 16, 2015

Specific mentions of jewelry and Prime Day on Twitter were along the same lines, with users describing the pieces Amazon offered on Prime Day as “cheap” and “ugly” or “cheesy.” One Twitter user, @ImNotTHATAndyKim, actually suggested that Prime Day would have been a good place for jewelry store owners to buy stock for their stores.

If I owned a jewelry store, I could probably stock up inventory for the next 5 years from #primeday

— Im not THAT Andy Kim (@andykim)