Amazon is hoping customers don鈥檛 see any more dogs, after early problems on Prime Day meant people trying to shop got only images of the cute canines delivering an apologetic message.

Amazon鈥檚 website ran into some early snags Monday on its much-hyped Prime Day, an embarrassment for the tech company on the shopping holiday it created.

Shoppers clicking on many Prime Day links after the 3 p.m. ET launch in the U.S. got only images of dogs 鈥� some quite abashed-looking 鈥� with the words, 鈥淯h-oh. Something went wrong on our end.鈥� People took to social media to complain that they couldn鈥檛 order items.

By about 4:30 p.m., many Prime Day links were working, and Amazon said later Monday that it was working to resolve the glitches.

In an email to The Associated Press, it said 鈥渕any are shopping successfully鈥� and that in the first hour of the 36-hour Prime Day in the U.S., customers ordered more items than in the same time frame last year.

Still, the hiccups could mute sales and send shoppers elsewhere during one of Amazon鈥檚 busiest sales periods that鈥檚 also a key time for it to sign up new Prime members. Shoppers have lots of options, as many other chains have offered sales and promotions to try to capitalize on the Prime Day spending.

Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali at Forrester Research called the glitch a 鈥渉uge deal.鈥�

鈥淭his is supposed to be one of their biggest days of the year,鈥� she wrote in an email. 鈥淚 am shocked this caught them off guard. But I guess the lesson is to not have a big unveil during the middle of the day when everyone comes to your site all at once.鈥�

Are the Amazon Prime Day error dogs real or just a ploy to drive more visibility & traffic because dogs are life?

鈥� Katie (@katiegoodling)

Amazon, which recently announced that Prime membership would be getting more expensive, was hoping to lure in shoppers by focusing on new products and having Whole Foods be part of the process. It was also hoping parents would use the deals event to jump start back-to-school shopping.

Jason Goldberg, senior vice-president of commerce at Publicis.Sapient, noted that the problems could turn off shoppers for a while, particularly those who planned to sign up for Prime membership.

鈥淚f you were planning to find Prime deals to lower the cost of back-to-school (purchases), you鈥檙e almost certainly going back to your traditional venue of choice,鈥� he said.

Goldberg noted that it鈥檚 easy for Amazon to extend deals on its own devices and brands, but trickier for it to extend deals for its third-party sellers because they signed up for different promotional slots.

While Amazon doesn鈥檛 disclose sales figures for Prime Day, Deborah Weinswig, CEO of Coresight Research, had estimated that it will generate $3.4 billion in sales worldwide, up from an estimated $2.4 billion last year. Prime Day also lasts six hours longer than last year.

Meanwhile, other retailers like Macy鈥檚, Nordstrom, Best Buy, Walmart and Target have rolled out their own promotions, said Charlie O鈥橲hea, lead retail analyst at Moody鈥檚.

鈥淏rick-and-mortar retailers know that they have little choice but to continue offering their own deep discounts, which is evident in the proliferation of 鈥楤lack Friday in July鈥� deals that are being launched earlier each year, as well as various 鈥榩rice match鈥� offers,鈥� he said in a note earlier Monday.

Amazon created Prime Day in 2015 to mark its 20th anniversary, and its success has inspired other e-commerce companies to invent shopping holidays. Online furniture seller Wayfair introduced Way Day in April, becoming its biggest revenue day ever.

Prime Day also usually helps boost the number of Prime memberships. Amazon disclosed for the first time this year that it had more than 100 million paid Prime members worldwide. It鈥檚 hoping to keep Prime attractive for current and would-be subscribers after raising the U.S. annual membership fee by 20 per cent to $119 and to $12.99 for the month-to-month option.

鈥淚t has been one of the best vehicles鈥� for signing up members, said Goldberg.

Anne D鈥橧nnocenzio, The Associated Press

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