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Tens of Millions of Holiday Shoppers Sign Up for Amazon Prime

Ina Steiner
Amazon
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Amazon said Wednesday that “tens of millions” of people started Prime free trials or paid memberships this holiday season. Its annual holiday brag report was again short on hard numbers, with the company calling it a “record-breaking” holiday season “with more items ordered worldwide than ever before.”

Amazon said small and medium-sized businesses “had their best holiday season ever in our stores, with items sold growing at a faster rate than retail.” Over 50% of items sold through Amazon during the holidays came from small and medium-sized businesses.

Other factoids about its holiday performance:

  • In the US, more than one billion items shipped for free this holiday with Prime.
  • Millions of unique items in the US shipped with Prime FREE Same-Day, Prime FREE One-Day or FREE two-hour delivery with Prime Now.
  • Customers purchased millions more Amazon Devices this holiday season compared to last year – the best-selling Amazon Devices this holiday included all-new Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick 4K with all-new Alexa Voice Remote, and Echo.

“Amazon today announced a record-breaking holiday season thanks to its customers all around the world, with more items ordered worldwide than ever before. Amazon customers shopped at record levels from a wide selection of products across every department, discovering top holiday gifts and trending products offered at deep discounts and low prices.”

Amazon also named some of the best-selling products for the season, including the following toys and electronics:

“Toys: The best-selling toys in the U.S. and worldwide included the L.O.L. Surprise! Glam Glitter Series Doll with 7 Surprises, Nerf N-Strike Elite Strongarm Blaster, Melissa & Doug Scratch Art Rainbow Mini Notes with Wooden Stylus, Crayola Inspiration Art Case, and LEGO Creator Mighty Dinosaurs Toy.

“Electronics: The best-selling electronics this holiday season included Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series II) Wireless Headphones, the Samsung Flat 65″ 4K UHD 8 Series Smart LED TV, Apple iPad (Wi-Fi, 32GB) in Space Gray, Wemo Mini Smart Plug, Blue Yeti USB Microphone in Blackout, Wyze Cam 1080p HD Indoor Wireless Smart Home Camera, and HP Sprocket Photo Paper.”

Amazon said customers’ use of Alexa for shopping “more than tripled this year” compared to last year, but it didn’t reveal last year’s number.

See the full press release here.

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Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

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