Amazon Claims Prime Day Was Site’s Biggest Sales Day Ever

E-commerce giant’s sales stunt increased sales 60 percent from last year and passed last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday

amazon prime
Getty Images

Amazon continues to pile up revenue at an obscene rate, announcing that yesterday’s “Prime Day” racked up more sales than any other day in the company’s history.

The Seattle-based e-commerce kingpin said that Tuesday sales on the site passed those for last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday and grew 60 percent over those on last year’s Prime Day — though the company declined to disclose total revenues.

In addition, Amazon stretched this year’s Prime Day promo to 30 hours, launching the event on Monday night, so direct comparisons to previous sales days may not be valid.

JP Morgan analysts had anticipated Prime Day would jump up 55 percent this year to rake in $1 billion in revenue.

Not so shockingly, Amazon reported Wednesday that the top-selling item was one of its own products — the home speaker system Echo Dot — which was selling at steep discounts yesterday.

The yearly event offers its Prime customers — which costs $99 a year for free two-day shipping and many other perks — a myriad of deals (although many of them are to simply offload old merchandise).

The event is an opportune time for Amazon to pad its Prime memberships, and yesterday seemed no different. Amazon is known for keeping information on its Prime subscribers under wraps, but did mention “tens of millions” of members bought something during the period — saying it was a 50 percent increase from last year.

Comments