AMAZON JUNGLE
Boffo Prime Day even after gripes
ONLINE SHOPPERS should get used to Christmas in July — no matter how much some summertime Grinches groaned.
Despite a slew of social media complaints about the quality of products and deals available, Amazon.com’s Prime Day event on Wednesday was a huge success that will “definitely” become an annual event, according to the e-commerce giant.
Amazon, which ran the one-day promotion to lure new subscribers to its $99-a-year Prime service and fire up some warm-weather business, said it sold 18% more products than last year’s Black Friday while orders nearly tripled — up 266% — compared with the same day a year earlier.
“Going into this, we weren’t sure whether Prime Day would be a onetime thing or if it would become an annual event,” said Greg Greeley, Amazon Prime vice president, in a statement. “After yesterday’s results, we’ll definitely be doing this again.”
The company, which didn’t release revenue figures for the day, also claimed more new members tried Prime on Wednesday than on any other day ever. Amazon had offered shoppers a 30-day, freetrial period for the service, which includes free shipping and video, music and book downloads.
Among Prime Day’s top-selling items were 56,000 “Lord of the Rings” Blu-ray sets and 41,000 Bose headphones — only eight were sold the previous Wednesday, Amazon said. Still, not everyone was thrilled with the event, with many shoppers tweeting their disappointment over a lack of blockbuster deals and short supplies.
That frustration could carry over into next year’s event and end up hurting Amazon’s reputation, Larry Chiagouris, a professor of marketing at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business in Manhattan, told the Daily News.
“Amazon is the overwhelming No. 1 choice for most trusted e-commerce brand, and that level of trust is so high, consumers are willing to cut it some slack,” Chiagouris said.
“But if their deals aren’t impressive going forward, they could end up losing that goodwill. At some point, these wonderful deals won’t be perceived as being so wonderful.”