Amazon’s annual summer sale, Prime Day, was supposed to begin at 3pm US Eastern time today, July 16. But for most users logging onto Amazon.com or the company’s mobile site, they were greeted with dogs, not deals.
Amazon’s website seems to be stalling under the strain of what is likely a massive increase in visitors looking to score something on sale. Amazon should probably call its cloud-services provider to complain. Oh wait.
The retailer’s default error page tells users that something’s gone wrong, and displays a picture of a dog owned by an Amazon employee (here’s more on the dogs). As users tried to get deals, they were either stuck in a bizarre loop on Amazon’s Prime Day page, or saw an adorable dog:
But not all were pleased with Amazon’s apology page:
The rest of Amazon’s website seems unaffected. The company wasn’t immediately available to explain what had happened to the Prime Day site, or whether it would extend what’s supposed to be a 36-hour sale.
Update, 5:10pm: Amazon has finally acknowledged that some users are struggling to access the Prime Day site in a tweet, but doesn’t seem to be considering extending the window of the sale:
Update, 5:55pm: It appears that Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, is also struggling. Quartz reached out to confirm whether this is related to the Prime Day issues, or an entirely separate issue.