Amazon's Prime Day Marred by Checkout Problems

Amazon.com’s Prime Day has been marred by many customers reporting problems checking out, potentially slowing down business on a day the online retailer was hoping would yield hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and spur sign ups to its Prime program. On Tuesday morning at 7:40 Eastern time, the retailer said on Twitter that some customers were having problems with the checkout process. In particular, they complained that they were getting an “add to cart fail” message each time they try to grab one of the deals. By 11:18 a.m., Amazon said that the problem had been resolved. However, by then Amazon was dealing with angry shoppers.

Total Retail's Take: The news is unfortunate for Amazon, which debuted Prime Day last year as a one-day sale exclusively for members of its Prime subscription shopping service. While Prime Day is a manufactured shopping event, the sale is a big deal for the online retailer. Retail advisory firm FBIC predicts Prime Day could generate $525 million in sales, up 26 percent from its $415 million estimate last year. We'll have to wait and see how big of an impact the checkout issues had on sales. By early morning, the hashtag #PrimeDayFail, which gained traction during last year’s inaugural event after many customers were underwhelmed by items included in the deals, was trending again.