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Amazon bested Black Friday in Prime Day sales event

Amazon’s Prime Day sales promotion was already beating the mega online retailer’s 2014 Black Friday order rate by late afternoon Wednesday, with eight hours remaining in the deal event.

July 15, 2015 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com

Amazon’s Prime Day sales promotion was already beating the mega online retailer’s 2014 Black Friday order rate by late afternoon Wednesday, with eight hours remaining in the deal event.

The top sellers included Fire TV sticks and Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray sets.

“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,” said Greg Greeley, VP, Amazon Prime, in an announcement.

As RetailCustomerExperience.com reported the event is an anniversary celebration of Amazon and an opportunity to promote one of its top-tier services.

New deals were cropping up even 10 minutes, with thousands of Lightning Deals, seven popular Deals of the Day, and Prime members getting unlimited free shipping.

In response Wal-Mart also decided to launch its own super sales effort.

“We’re kicking off some awesome deals this week that will be available for everybody with no hidden costs or admission fees, and they won’t be available for just one day,” Wal-Mart CEO and President Fernando Madeira stated in a blog post Monday. “Our customers will see thousands of great deals on Rollback beginning this week along with some special atomic deals (more on that in the days to come). In addition, we’re rolling back our free shipping minimum order to $35 from $50, making it even easier for customers to save on shipping all summer long.”

The move comes as retailers are battling for consumer spend that is on the rise following more than a few years of decreased spendin due to the economic recession events.

While it’s clear Wal-Mart is striving to show consumers they can save without having to pay for a membership program the retailer has been developing its own ‘Prime’ membership service that would cost $50 a year, according to a Bloomberg report. Madeira makes no mention of that service in his Monday blog.

About Judy Mottl

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Judy Mottl is editor of Retail Customer Experience and Digital Signage Today. She has decades of experience as a reporter, writer and editor covering technology and business for top media including AOL, InformationWeek, InternetNews and Food Truck Operator.

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