Dive Brief:

• Prime Day was a sales boon for Amazon and its rivals alike. Adobe Analytics found that sales at large retailers (with $1 billion or more in annual revenue) increased 54% compared to an average Tuesday. But niche retailers (with less than $5 million in annual revenue) saw a 18% decrease in online sales.

• Average orders at Amazon doubled compared to the previous month, and revenue almost tripled (280%), according to a report from e-commerce research platform Edison Trends emailed to Retail Dive. Nearly a quarter of orders (23%) were for electronics, compared to 11% of the average of the previous 30 days.

• Wedbush Securities estimated Amazon's total Prime Day sales at $4.2 billion, a 33% increase over last year, Bloomberg reported.

Dive Insight:

Early glitches on Amazon's website cost the company — up to $100 million, by some estimates — but apparently did little to slow the massive sales push during the online event. 

"Amazon's site glitches didn't negatively impact sales, with the company revealing sales were higher than ever," Adobe Digital Insights director Taylor Schreiner said in a statement. The pictures of Amazon employee dogs filling its websites error pages "successfully mitigated some of the negative sentiment around the online retailer's site difficulties," Schreiner added.

Dogs did well in another way. Amazon's new Wag private label pet brand climbed the e-retailer's best-seller list after it discounted 5-pound bags by 30%. By 2 pm, Wag had earned the "Amazon's Choice" badge for "dog food," according to data analytics company Profitero. "This category example is testimony to just how serious Amazon is about (1) launching and growing its private brands, but also (2) increasingly penetrating some of the highest velocity, highest penetration categories in the consumables space," Profitero said in a blog post Wednesday. 

More important for retailers, though, are the good omens Prime Day may have for Thanksgiving sales. Last year, retailers that grew 10% in the first half of the year saw revenue increases during Thanksgiving weekend that were 2.1 times more than the average retailer, Adobe said. That indicates retailers who did well on Prime Day 2018 are likely to see strong sales this holiday season, according to Adobe.