Amazon Prime Day Fail

Earlier this week, after flooding the internet with promos and no fewer than five press releases, Amazon’s much-announced Prime Day went live. Or did it?

At noon EST, Prime customers went to Amazon to snatch up their deals and found puppies and kittens (ok… just puppies named Muffin, Waffles and RoRo). The site crashed repeatedly. As customers reloaded the page, they were met with the dogs of Amazon and the message, “Sorry, something went wrong on our end.” Hashtags #PrimeDayFail and #DogsOfAmazon started trending quickly. What can we learn from this Prime Day Fail?

We can all fail at what we’re best at, so don’t get cocky.

The Amazon Prime Day Fail wasn’t just a failure to honor Prime Day right away, it was a failure in one of their core business services. Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud hosting company, has a rough history of bringing down the internet.

The more you promote, the greater the fail if something goes wrong.

You can’t afford to fail. Amazon can get away with failing, because they’re ingrained in the everyday shopping habits of the entire world. We don’t even have to touch a device to buy something on Prime Day (we just ask Alexa). But you are not Amazon. We see this over and over again – brands and organizations promoting a product before having a website that works. If they come to your website and can’t find what you promised them, or can’t check out, they will not come back again.

Have a backup plan.

Pictures of dogs may soften the blow, but we wouldn’t rely on it. Try to think of the customer experience, and work from there. Give them a phone number to call. Install a chatbot so they can still contact you. Give them a way to leave their email address so you can notify them when you’re back online.

But… customers will still be there, if they’re already loyal.

Despite its Prime Day Fail, Amazon’s customers were willing to try and try again to achieve their shopping goals, which signifies a great deal of loyalty. Overall, sales surpassed Cyber Monday, Black Friday and the previous Prime Day. And that’s the deal with Prime. Prime is actually a loyalty program that builds and builds the attachment between consumers and Amazon – so they will keep coming back.

Amazon Prime Day During Pandemic

Due to the unprecedented pandemic which started in 2020 up to the present time, the schedule of Amazon Prime Day 2020 was moved to October instead of the usual summertime big shopping event globally. Despite and in spite of the lockdown, Amazon was able to increase its orders in 2020 which has surpassed its sales last 2019 by approximately $3.2 billion worth of products sold all around the world. That is approximately a 45% increase in sales globally compared to 2019. Indeed great news for Amazon! Top sellers include Amazon’s own devices such as the Echo Dot and Fire Stick 4k also robot vacuum.

This year, 2021, Amazon Prime Day is set back in the summer slot and the exact date will be announced soon. It may be scheduled sometime in the first or second week of July. So watch out for the biggest sales event of the year for Amazon. Expect large price cuts on devices, toys, appliances, and more. 

If you need assistance planning your marketing campaigns, we’re here to help.