Amazon Prime Day Sales in U.S Are Soaring Despite Major Glitch

Amazon Prime Day kicked off its 36-hour event on Monday but suffered a massive glitch at the beginning that lasted for hours.

Users took to their social media to complain about clicking on Amazon’s Prime Day to buy items but were met with a page with a dog on it and an apology.

Amazon issued a statement and said, “It wasn’t all a walk in the (dog) park, we had a ruff start — we know some customers were temporarily unable to make purchases.”

Despite the “ruff” start, Amazon saw sales 80% higher than average in the first 12 hours compared to the same 12-hour period last week. This is according to analytics company Feedvisor.

Feedvisor CEO Victor Rosenman commented, “The impact of the glitch was very minimal — we saw about a 5% decrease in orders [compared to the same period last year], and it quickly corrected itself.”

Coresight Research had projected that sales would reach at minimum $3.4 billion globally during Prime Day, which would set a new record and surpass Amazon’s Cyber Monday sales.

An Amazon spokeswoman said in an email to CNBC, “Prime Day sales in the US so far are bigger than ever – in fact, in the first ten hours Prime Day grew even faster, year-over-year, than the first ten hours last year.”

“Compared to previous years, we’re seeing discounts across a much wider range of categories including fashion, groceries, and supplements,” said Cooper Smith to CNBC. He is the director of research at Gartner L2. He added, “There is considerable promotion going towards Amazon’s own private label brands, an area in which Amazon has invested heavily over the past 12 months.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and have not been compensated for this article.