Amazon boasts record holiday sales by the “millions”

If there is one word to define Amazon’s record holiday season sales, it’s “millions.” The company is short on specific numbers, but it’s boasting a record season of holiday sales across multiple departments, adding to more than a billion items shipped across the globe.

Without giving exact numbers, Amazon says this year’s holiday season sales surpassed 2017’s by “millions.” Part of that success may be due to “tens of millions” of people who signed up for Amazon’s Prime membership, which offers free two-day shipping. Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer, said that “we are thrilled that in the U.S. alone, more than one billion items shipped for free this holiday with Prime.”

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The company also notes that smaller and medium-sized businesses had success in their online stores, making up more than 50 percent of Amazon’s sales leading up to the Christmas holiday.

“This season was our best yet, and we look forward to continuing to bring our customers what they want, in ways most convenient for them in 2019,” Wilke said.

Among the most popular items purchased over the season:

• New Echo Dot
• L.O.L. Surprise! Glam Glitter Series Doll
• Fashion items from Carhartt
• Bose QuietComfort Wireless Headphones
• Nerf N-Strike Elite Strongarm Blaster
• Melissa & Doug Scratch Art Rainbow Mini Notes with Wooden Stylus
• Samsung Flat 65″ 4K UHD 8 Series Smart LED TV
• Apple iPad

Amazon is also reporting that its own devices were record sellers with customers purchasing millions of them. Notably, devices for children, such as the Echo Dot Kids Edition, were top sellers. Also being sold by the millions were Amazon Fire TV, Fire Tablet, Kindle, and the Fire TV Stick.

Among other interesting observations by Amazon over the holiday season:

• Alexa users used the device to listen to “hundreds of millions” more hours of music over the holidays than last year; the top requested song was “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey
• Customers also used Alexa to turn on their holiday lights “tens of millions” of times this year; the top request was to turn on the Christmas tree lights
• Alexa delivered eight times more reminders this year than in 2017
• Customers requested three times more recipes this year than in 2017, and helped mix hundreds of thousands of cocktails
• Customers using Alexa to shop tripled in 2018
• Customers who made Spanish their language of choice on Amazon.com more than doubled in 2018, compared to 2017
• Carhartt was one of the most popular clothing brands ordered during the holiday buying season
• Record numbers of smart home devices sold, such as smart-plugs and automatic vacuum cleaners

A Christmas lawsuit

But it wasn’t all gifts and glee for Amazon over the holidays. The online company also was sued by Williams-Sonoma this month for “unfairly and deceptively” engaging in a campaign of copying the company’s designs, specifically from its West Elm brand. Williams-Sonoma claimed that Amazon is selling products that are direct rip-offs of its own items, and selling them at a considerable markup, directly competing with it.

The president of Williams-Sonoma, Janet Hayes, even received an email from Amazon advertising Williams-Sonoma’s signature peppermint bark, sold at almost double the usual price. The candy was not being sold by Williams-Sonoma on Amazon, however.

Amazon continues to grow

The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that amid Amazon’s record sales, and expansion into New York and Virginia, the company continues to grow in Seattle.

Amazon is currently adding 3.3 million square feet of office space to the 10 million square feet already up and running in Seattle. This will accommodate more than 55,000 employees (an addition of 10,000) by the end of 2020.

Amazon has also leased 1.15 million square feet in Bellevue across three sites.

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