Amazon.com Inc. kicked off its big Prime Day sales promotion with technical glitches on its website and app, threatening its 36-hour sales extravaganza.<\/p>\n
Trouble on the site spiked just as the event began at 3 p.m. Eastern time Monday, but declined significantly within a couple of hours, according to Downdetector.com, which monitors web trouble. Shoppers were expected to spend $3.4 billion on Amazon during the promotion, up more than 40 percent from last year\u2019s Prime Day, according to Coresight Research.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome customers are having difficulty shopping, and we\u2019re working to resolve this issue quickly,\u201d Amazon said Monday on Twitter, adding that \u201cmany are shopping successfully.\u201d The company\u2019s stock closed at $1,822.49, but slid about 1.5 percent in extended trading in New York.<\/p>\n
The issues weren\u2019t limited to shopping. Thousands of people reported losing connections with their Alexa digital assistants via Echo voice-activated speakers and having trouble streaming Prime Video, according to Downdetector. Amazon Web Services, the company\u2019s cloud-computing division, reported global problems with its AWS Management Console, one of its tools. Thousands of big companies rely on AWS to run their websites.<\/p>\n
Amazon also faced labor issues. The Ver.di services union said workers at six German sites would strike on Amazon\u2019s Prime Day on Tuesday to protest lack of health benefits. Unions also called for a three-day strike at Amazon\u2019s main Spanish fulfillment plant, seeking new contractual agreements and a salary increase.<\/p>\n
Shoppers spent 54 percent more in the first three hours of this year\u2019s event — 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. EST — than in the first three hours of a year ago when the shopping bonanza began at 9 p.m., according to Feedvisor, which sells software to set prices in e-commerce.<\/p>\n
Amazon itself hasn\u2019t disclosed specifics, but Feedvisor\u2019s estimates are based on results from its clients. The firm\u2019s data indicates the glitches limited sales in only the first hour of the event, when sales were down 5 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m candidly shocked that they\u2019re not prepared for the traffic,\u201d Forrester analyst Sucharita Kodali said. \u201cUnless this is way beyond their wildest expectations, it\u2019s just odd.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of Monday afternoon, there were 4,670 social media posts about the Prime Day crash. Eighty percent of online sentiment about Prime Day conveyed anger or sadness, according to Crimson Hexagon, which monitors social-media feedback.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t clear how widespread the tech glitches were, with users reporting different problems. Some people were seeing the \u201cdogs of Amazon\u201d notification that the website wasn\u2019t working, while others said they could add items to their shopping carts, but the Prime Day discount price wasn\u2019t reflected at checkout. For some, clicking on various promotions just brought the person back to the home page. And some shoppers reported not having any problems at all.<\/p>\n
The problem is most likely a bug in a software update that should be fixed within hours, said Antony Edwards, chief technology officer at Eggplant, which monitors website performance. Amazon rarely has trouble handling high traffic volumes and its security is unlikely to be breached by a hacker, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything we see points to their content distribution network, which is how they get product images and videos around the world quickly,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cSomeone has made a change and it\u2019s not compatible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shoppers found an outlet in venting on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cWay to go, Amazon.com. People might actually buy prime day stuff if your site wouldn\u2019t crash. Great planning. Can\u2019t get the app to load at all,\u201d Jessica Henning wrote on Amazon\u2019s Facebook page.<\/p>\n
Twitter lit up with screen shots of Amazon\u2019s Prime Day failures, which featured photos of dogs and the words \u201csorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan Quinn, general partner at Spark Capital, tweeted that Amazon\u2019s cloud competitors at Google should be delighted: \u201cDiane Greene is the only person celebrating Amazon Prime Day so far,\u201d referring to Google\u2019s cloud chief.<\/p>\n
Despite the bust out of the gate, the company said it sold more items in the first hour of Prime Day this year than in the first four hours of last year\u2019s event. And Kodali said Amazon has plenty of time to salvage the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure they are working furiously and many heads are rolling,\u201d she said. \u201cEven Sears has managed to salvage Black Friday crashes with much smaller teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
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