Amazon’s bonanza day had its share of glitches. Touted as ‘Amazon Prime Day’, the e-commerce giant’s massive discount event apparently saw several shoppers frustrated by technical faults on its website and app.
In addition to speed bumps on shopping (mainly in the first hour of the event day that started at 3 P.M Eastern time Monday), customers also faced troubles streaming content on Amazon Prime Video and connecting to AI voice assistant Alexa – as indicated by user reports on DownDetector.com. Many people took to social media and tagged the event as “#PrimeDayFail”.
The technical hiccups, however, could not stop this year’s Prime Day from outshining last year’s event. Recovering from initial hours of technical trouble, total sales on Amazon’s website and app climbed 89% in the first 12 hours of the event compared to the same period last year, according to software firm Feedvisor. This year, Amazon upped the ante by extending the Prime Day period to 36 hours, compared to last year’s 30 hours.