Despite some glitches in the early hours of Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN) Prime Day shopping event, the e-commerce giant set another record with one Wall Street firm estimating it raked in $4.2 billion in sales.
Based on Amazon’s disclosure that it sold more than 100 million products during the 36-hour promotion and that small and medium-sized businesses had more than $1 billion in sales, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter came up with the $4 billion in sales figure, according to Bloomberg. That’s 33% higher than Amazon Prime Day 2017 and is more than the $3.4 billion in sales Coresight Research predicted for Prime Day sales, noted Bloomberg. (See more: How Prime Day Impacts Amazon Stock.)
Prime Day 2018 Biggest Day In Amazon’s History
While Amazon does not disclose sales from its Prime Day event, it did say in a press release Wednesday (July 18) that the event surpassed Cyber Monday, Black Friday and its previous Prime Day, making it the biggest shopping event in the Seattle-based online retailer’s history. Amazon said bestsellers around the world were the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote and the Echo Dot. Prime members also received discounts on Whole Foods Market items for the first time.
Skubana, an e-commerce software company that aggregates sales data from customers selling on Amazon, told Bloomberg third-party merchants on the platform enjoyed sales increases of 28% 30-hours into the event.
Glitches Don’t Deter Shoppers
The strong showing came as the company’s website and mobile app experienced outages shortly after Prime Day kicked off. That caused frustrated users to turn to social media to vent.
Amazon wasn’t the only winner during its Prime Day event. Rival Target Corp. (TGT) said on Tuesday (July 17) that on the second day of Prime Day, it had its “highest single day of traffic and sales” on its website so far this year. “Millions of guests shopped Target.com, with top sellers including small appliances, beauty and personal care, baby gear, home and tech items,” the Minneapolis-based retailer said in a press release Wednesday. Target offered customers discounts of up to 30% on select product categories.
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