Amazon Prime Day Broke The Internet

Amazon's third-annual Prime Day beat out both Black Friday and Cyber Monday to sit atop the site's throne. Business of Fashion reports that this year's Prime Day was the biggest day, ever, with single-day sales blowing past more traditional shopping days.

Last year, Prime Day actually lasted 30 hours. This time around, Amazon extended its promos for an additional six hours, making it more like Amazon Prime Day-and-a-Half. Even without the extra time, Amazon says that it had 60% more shoppers than last year in the same 30-hour period. This year, the site boasted a slew of new Prime memberships, too, so new customers bolstered sales, pushing figures into record-breaking territory.

According to Amazon, "tens of millions" of Prime shoppers got in on the action, even in the wake of Walmart's free two-day shipping (which comes without a membership fee) and Macy's own strategy of offering free shipping on Amazon Prime Day. In a statement, Amazon explained that special events such as Prime Day are designed to convert occasional shoppers into bonafide Prime members — and the strategy seems to be working out perfectly.

"More new members joined Prime on July 11 than on any single day in Amazon history," the statement read, according to Forbes. "Tens of millions of Prime members made a purchase on Prime Day 2017, more than 50% higher than the prior year."

The biggest seller this year was Amazon's Echo Dot mini-speaker. BoF notes that even if Amazon loses money on the sale of a unit, the company can still count it as a victory. The Echo Dot connects users to Amazon, letting them order more items from the site via voice command in addition to more mundane things like checking the weather and ordering pizza.

This year, the Dot was discounted 30% and other models were up to 50% off. Compared to last year, seven times more people opted to snag an Echo device. Amazon is hoping all of those new Echoes lead to even more sales next year, when Amazon Prime day is, ahem, primed to break new records.