Amazon Prime Day Was A Complete Bust... Or Was It?

Now that the dust has settled from Amazon Prime Day, it's clear that the Seattle-based online retailer wasn't just using overblown hyperbole to get rid of some of its online inventory. It also didn't miscalculate. Rather, the response was more likely exactly what Amazon expected. As we previously reported, there were some great deals to be found, but for the most part, Prime Day was ridiculed for featuring discounts on seemingly random or even off-the-wall crazy items.

Of course, that only garnered more media attention. And yes, it helped the company get rid of some of its more eclectic inventory. But in all likelihood, it was even more calculated than that. Imagine for a moment if Prime Day were filled with nothing but stellar deals on the sexy big-ticket items. $100 off video game consoles, 50%+ savings on laptops, deeply discounted furniture, etc.

What would the tweets have looked like then? There would have only been links to those hot deals, and by the time 90% of the casual browsers clicked on them, they would have been dead.

Instead, casual users found themselves heading to all sorts of unusual products, if nothing else than for the amusement of seeing what everyone was complaining about.

And as we all know, the Amazon website is built like a casino — all the company needs to do is get you in, and at least some fraction of people will look around and suddenly get lost until they realize they just blew some of their money.

There are tens of millions of Amazon Prime members. If the company wanted to appeal to the hardcore shoppers, all it needs to do is send out a quick email blast. But Prime Day was littered with arguably one of Amazon's most widespread marketing campaigns ever, with external online ads and radio and TV spots.

And for the lucky people who stalked the stagnated offers throughout the day, they got some genuinely great deals. For everyone else, Prime Day turned into some kind of buzzworthy gag that encouraged even the less-interested crowd to dig in and browse through all of the available deals.

Sure, they probably started off looking at the shoehorns and lime-colored tennis shoes, but could have very well ended up coming across something they actually needed as well. These customers might not have even bothered to check the Prime Day deals if there wasn't so much social media curiosity about it. And those are exactly the kinds of customers Amazon wanted to attract.

Some of the analysis of Prime Day sharply criticized Amazon's strategy that ranged from calling it a miscalculation all the way to a complete failure, as if some random teenage blogger really believed he understood Amazon's business goals better than the six-figure-salary managers who meticulously orchestrated the whole thing.

When questioned about the criticism, Amazon offered no sympathy at all and instead proclaimed that the day was a complete success. The fact that the online giant did not even give credence to the complaints proves that the reactions were exactly what it expected.

And in all honesty, how many people are never going to shop from Amazon again as a result of #PrimeFail? At the end of the day, Amazon is still the best online retailer in the world. And if it tries to promote "Prime Day" again next year, will it be a flop? Considering this year went perfectly according to plan, probably not.