Yesterday was the second edition of Amazon Prime Day. Amazon renewed its efforts to dethrone Black Friday as the biggest online shopping event of the year. But after the issues the brand experienced last year - and with many shoppers reporting additional problems this year - did Amazon manage to dodge another #PrimeDayFail debacle? We used Visibrain to analyse online activity on social media, blogs and in the press, to find out how things went for Prime Day 2016.

Amazon’s first attempt at Prime Day experienced a few teething problems to say the least: disappointing deals and insufficient stock left many customers fuming last year. Although Amazon announced that it had made record sales numbers during the event, public perception of Prime Day left a lot to be desired. The brand had a lot of work to do to improve the image of Prime Day this year, but did they manage it?

Prime Day gets double the hype this year

Based on volumes alone, Prime Day 2016 has certainly caused more of a stir than last year. Mention volumes were double what they were in 2015 – 228,879 mentions for this year compared to just 158,521 for last year.

Volumes aside, general sentiment around the event had improved:

@amazon what a huge improvement from last year ! :) #amazonprimeday

— Corinne (@crinnerun) July 12, 2016

Finally getting a new monitor. Thank you, Prime Day. pic.twitter.com/r5RGwwiQaO

— Daddy Austin (@arhourigan) July 12, 2016

Me trying to find the money to pay for all these prime day deal on Amazon pic.twitter.com/jQnznlwjWd

— Ryan Wintle (@RyanWintle) July 12, 2016

In the end, Prime Day is all about bagging a bargain, and Amazon seemed to manage to up their game this year.

A lot of the most popular tweets and press articles about Prime Day were about all the best deals and how to get them. Thousands of people shared articles from sites such as Mashable, Entrepreneur and CNN that had all the tricks and tips of how to get the most out of Prime Day.

If we analyse the main hashtags used over the course of the day, things look quite positive: the majority of coversations were concentrated around the #PrimeDay hashtag, and Amazon’s #StartWithASmile charity hashtag was also popular.

However, closer inspection reveals that #PrimeDayFail also figures in the list of most-common hashtags. Did Amazon repeat their old mistakes?

Amazon narrowly avoids another #PrimeDayFail

The stigma of last year’s #PrimeDayFail was certainly hanging over the brand this year - customers and the press were waiting with baited breath to see if Amazon would slip up again. The first #PrimeDayFail tweets started trickling in before the event had even started:

I see that #PrimeDay is coming again. I cannot be the only one who remembers what a joke it was last year?? #PrimeDayFail

— TheRelentlessReader (@JenHartling) July 2, 2016

Just found out @amazon is doing another #PrimeDay this year. Can't wait for more exciting deals on Tupperware! #PrimeDayFail

— Jack Barton (@JackTheBarton) July 5, 2016

With soaring mention volumes, generally positive sentiment, and good deals, everything looked to be going well for Prime Day over the first few hours of the event. However, things started to go wrong for Amazon in the early afternoon as #PrimeDayFail made a comeback. Customers began to experience issues with adding items to their shopping baskets, and they were not happy:

Happy Add to Cart Failed Day everyone! #PrimeDay #PrimeDayFail

— Mary Nadal (@marycnadal) July 12, 2016

#PrimeDay is awesome until you actually try to buy something.... #PrimeDayFail pic.twitter.com/2SJ1FHtOLS

— Stephanie Caraway (@scare_away) July 12, 2016

Hey, @amazon, I'd like to buy stuff that I don't need with money I don't have, but nothing will add to my cart. 😭 #PrimeDay #PrimeDayFail

— EvilM (@EvilMaria1) July 12, 2016

Use of the #PrimeDayFail hashtag spiked at around 1 pm (GMT) as the complaints began to pour in on social media:

The hashtag was used 2,495 times over the course of the day. The problems experienced by customers were widely covered by the press:

Looks like another disaster for Amazon…or was it?

Let’s compare. In 2015, the #PrimeDayFail hashtag was used 4,583 times over the course of the event, which is already double the number experienced by Amazon this year. But by the end of the following day, that number had swelled to over 30,000, transforming into quite the PR disaster. You can read the full analysis of the PrimeDayFail crisis from last year here.

As we can see in the image below, this year the #PrimeDayFail hashtag has failed to continue to grow overnight the way it did at last year’s event. Instead, it gradually lost steam, and has appeared just 521 times this morning.

All in all, compared to the backlash experienced by the brand last year, Prime Day’s issues yesterday were little more than a hiccup. Website malfunctions can happen, (as Missguided proved this year when their website crashed during a sale), but Amazon responded quickly and dealt with the issues in good time, which helped to damp down a potential crisis.

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This year’s Prime Day was a definite improvement on last year’s event. But #PrimeDayFail is a perfect example of how a brand’s past mistakes can come back to haunt them. Amazon’s situation was particularly delicate as its previous issues with Prime Day had high entertainment value. Social Media loves a good brand crisis, but some of the weird and wonderful items on sale on Prime Day last year were downright hilarious. As a result, many were actually rooting against Prime Day this year, hoping for more of the same.

Luckily for Amazon, other than a few minor technical glitches and funny items this year’s event went well. Amazon’s efforts to learn from past mistakes and respond quickly in case of disruption has vastly contributed to improving the image of Prime Day, which should make it even more popular in the coming years.

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