Is Amazon's Prime Day Sale Shaping Up to Be a Dud?

When Amazon announced some of the deals that would be offered starting at midnight Wednesday—from $75 TVs to half-off cameras—Amazon Prime members set their alarms for the price savings.

But by the morning many were wondering why they even bothered.

Customers took to Twitter to voice their disappointment with the slow-loading website featuring deals they didn't think measured up to the Black Friday-busting hype.

The best deal I've seen so far is 15% off a box of pop tarts. #AmazonPrimeDay

— Sakeef Salman (@ChiefSakeef) July 15, 2015

Even the deals on high-profile items like Amazon's Fire TV Stick lasted only a couple of hours before the savings were fully claimed. The waitlist for the TV streaming device was filled minutes later. That led many frustrated customers to wonder if they were intentionally misled.

#AmazonPrimeDay is a horrible sale with misleading promotion. all these deals on candy and insoles. where's the stuff we want? @amazon

— Jamal (@inf) July 15, 2015

Amazon insisted it was part of a plan to "stagger the deals to make sure the fun will last through tonight," according to a spokeswoman. With new deals starting as often as every 10 minutes, she urged Prime customers to stay tuned for more.

But as the website's traffic surged, customers added slow load times to their growing list of complaints.

@amazon your apps and website are running so slow that I can't even view what deals are available! FIX THIS!!!!

— Rebecca Neary (@RebeccaNeary) July 15, 2015

Data from Internet performance firm Catchpoint Systems showed Amazon encountered problems dealing with its surge of customers heading to the site by midday despite its best efforts to prepare ahead of time. Amazon took some steps to reduce load-time issues, but apparently the efforts were not enough to counter the onslaught of traffic.