Amazon responds to massive site issues on Prime Day: 'Many are shopping successfully'

Getty/Rick T. Wilking

Amazon's website experienced some issues on Monday afternoon.

• Amazon's website experienced widespread issues at the start of Prime Day on Monday.
• Amazon issued a statement about the outage on Twitter, saying that "some customers are having difficulty shopping" and it is working to resolve the issue.
• The retailer also said that "many are shopping successfully" and that customers ordered more items in the first hour compared to the first hour of Prime Day last year.

Amazon Prime Day got off to a rocky start.

Amazon confirmed that its website was having issues that left many unable to purchase items at the start of this year's Prime Day shopping event, though it didn't elaborate on what caused them.

Complimentary Tech Event

Transform talent with learning that works

Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

"Some customers are having difficulty shopping, and we're working to resolve this issue quickly," Amazon said in a statement posted to Twitter at 4:59 p.m. ET.

Prime Day was set to kick off at 3:00 p.m. ET, but shoppers reported experiencing issues within just a few minutes of its beginning.

Despite these issues and the many complaints from customers on social media, Prime Day is already off to a good start, the company said.

"Many are shopping successfully - in the first hour of Prime Day in the U.S., customers have ordered more items compared to the first hour last year. There are hundreds of thousands of deals to come and more than 34 hours to shop Prime Day," Amazon's statement continued.

Last year's Prime Day started later, however, with deals starting at 9 p.m. on July 10 and running through July 11.

Prime Day is still expected to be one of the biggest sales days of the year for Amazon, with analysts estimating it to blow last year's sales out of the water.

Besides the orders that successfully went through, it's still likely that Amazon's site issues caused it to lose out on potential sales.

One Click Retail estimated that Amazon sells about $1 million a minute during peak time on Prime Day, based on last year's data. The issues this year could easily mean millions in lost sales, according to One Click Retail's founder, Spencer Millerberg.

Check out all of our Amazon Prime Day coverage:

• Amazon Prime Day, a made-up holiday that's become bigger than Black Friday, is here. This is why it's such a big deal.
• Everything you need to know and what to expect on July 16
• Amazon is giving Prime members up to $30 in free cash for shopping at Whole Foods
• Amazon is pulling out all the stops to make sure as many people as possible shop on Prime Day
• Amazon Prime Day is killing Black Friday
• 5 overlooked deals you really don't want to miss out on during Prime Day - but probably have in previous years
• Amazon's made-up holiday is forcing other retailers to offer crazy sales
• 9 money-saving tips and hacks for shopping on Amazon Prime Day
• Prime Day has become such a big shopping event that even retailers that never run deals are jumping on the opportunity