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Was Amazon Prime Day intended as a performance test in production?

• appperfeng 11y ago
  What a "Brilliant Marketing Stunt" and plan giving them the ability to do so much, and gather the results, so they will be optimized for the upcoming Black Friday / Cyber Monday / Holiday Shopping Season. Do you think performance issues in production, or perfectly planned execution in production?
• cjhveal 11y ago
  While I'm sure they gathered interesting data during the traffic surge, I'm not sure Amazon would want to damage their brand by risking failing so loudly with so many eyes on them. I'd bet that Amazon already invests heavily into load testing and ensuring the reliability of the AWS backbone their retail site runs on. I think the real driving motivation for Prime day was to drive Prime memberships. I get the impression that Amazon is betting on the recurring payments and increased volume of sales generated from Prime members to offset the ongoing cost of free shipping/other services and user acquisition costs like Prime day offerings.
  • marceltheshell 11y ago
    Good point and agree but they certainly gather lot of data that will help them be "even better" during Cyber Monday. I use their mobile app daily and have used during spikes. Overall, much better shopping experience than other apps so they're certainly doing something right.
• kellyemo 11y ago
  actually I think it was a full business test of something big they have planned for the holidays, and it involved performance and security testing as well. I expect Amazon to both create and grow new way to reach every potential shopper on the planet between Thanksgiving and New Years...