Prime Day Slashes Records As Amazon’s ‘Biggest Day Ever’

Amazon knows better than any retailer that sometimes a groundbreaking idea just needs to get its feet under itself before really taking off. It looks like that was the steady hand behind Prime Day’s start back in 2015 – and its phenomenal sophomore showing in 2016.

Amazon released figures Wednesday (July 13) on its Prime Day sales, and the company is already calling it “the biggest day ever for Amazon.” Globally, orders were up 60 percent over Prime Day’s first iteration, just as they were up 50 percent in the U.S. alone.

Those figures are significant considering that Amazon sold 34.4 million products last year.

It was also a stellar day for Amazon’s fleet of e-readers, TV dongles and other devices; single-day sales records were set for the Amazon Fire TV Stick (the best-selling Amazon device), the Amazon Fire TV, Fire tablets, Kindles and Alexa gadgets. Televisions, too, were moving like hotcakes on Prime Day Deux, with 90,000 units flying off warehouse shelves in the space of a day.

It was enough to get Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime, hinting at the irresistible nature of the event in the first place.

“Prime itself is the best deal in the history of shopping, and Prime Day was created as a special benefit exclusively for our Prime members,” Greeley said in a statement. “We want to thank our tens of millions of members around the world for making this the biggest day in the history of Amazon. We hope you had as much fun as we did. After yesterday’s results, we’ll definitely be doing this again.”

While Amazon certainly seems to be honing its strategy to make Prime Day an Amazon-heavy event, it did release information on what consumers around the globe were buying outside of the Amazon ecosystem. The most popular purchase (excluding Amazon devices) outside of the U.S.? An Instant Pot 7-in-1 multi-functional pressure cooker. In Germany and Austria? Why the Tefal Jamie Oliver Frying Pan, of course.

And in Japan? Calbee Breakfast Cereal (800 grams). Must be delicious.

With such a vast offering of products and interested buyers, it’s no wonder that Prime membership is on the rise.