In the first few hours of July 12, 2016, the Amazon’s “Prime Day” event went through a computer glitch that did not allow customers to add items in their shopping cart – leaving customers unhappy and dissatisfied. The disgruntled customers brought their retaliation to the social media by complaining, making negative comments, using negative hashtags, mentioning Amazon, etc. A new hashtag was created: #PrimeDayFail!

The Prime Day is a self-made occasion created by Amazon only for its members. By paying annual fee as much as $99, members are promised to have deals and bargains, much like the Black Friday or Cyber Monday event. Launched in 2015, the Prime Day events had never been satisfying for customers. In 2015, despite the revenue success, the 2015 Prime Day still left many customers unhappy with the deals – the deals were either sold out, or considered junks or unwanted products. Customers’ retaliation in social media yielded over 40,000 negative mentions. In 2016, Amazon promised to offer better deals than any other Amazon’s event history – yet problems still occurred. While sales were considered higher than the previous year, Amazon still received bad reps from unhappy customers.

Two consecutive fails of Prime Day seem to contradict with what Amazon believes in: customer experience. Customer experience is not just a strategy to Amazon, it is its purpose. Amazon believes that customer experience is far more important than financial reports. On other domains, Amazon is one of the most successful companies when dealing with customer experience, as indicated by continuously creating innovative and effective ways in delivering products its customers. However, the two service failures of its Prime Day event have tarnished its reputation to some extent.