Just before the holidays, we reported that, based on the raw traffic to its site, Amazon looked to be well on its way to having a great Christmas season. According to a report from Amazon this morning, Amazon’s 14th holiday season was indeed its ‘best ever,’ with 6.3 million items ordered worldwide on December 15 alone. However, while Amazon provided us with a lot of data about how many items it shipped, it did not make any announcements about its revenue or profit yet, which could potentially look less rosy.
We also know that other online retailers like Buy.com or Newegg had a pretty good holiday season, as shoppers went online to find bargains, though we have not seen any final number yet.
Online Retailers Profited from Bad Weather
In terms of profits and revenue, there is some good reason to be positive as well, however. According to ComScore, U.S. consumers spent almost twice the amount of money online during the last weekend before Christmas compared to last year. Besides the general trend towards online shopping we have seen over the last few years, some of these gains were probably also due to the severe snowstorms all around the country that prevented shoppers from even getting to the mall.
Some Bad News
Online shopping, however, remains one of the few bright spots in this depressed economy. According to MasterCard, compared to last year, overall retail sales fell by 2.5 in November and 4% in December through Christmas Eve.
Some More Data from Amazon
In lieu of providing us with any meaningful information about its revenue, Amazon decided to offer a number of quirky facts about its success this year. Here are some of the most interesting numbers:
- On the peak day this season, Amazon’s worldwide fulfillment network shipped over 5.6 million units.
- During the period from Nov. 15 – Dec. 10, Amazon sold one copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 every 2.5 minutes.
- Amazon Grocery sold enough coffee to give each resident of the highly caffeinated city of Seattle a cup per day for two months.
- Top sellers in consumer electronics included Samsung’s 52-inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color, the Apple iPod touch 8 GB (2nd Generation) and the Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, XP Home, 6 cell battery), sapphire blue.
- The weight of all GPS devices sold from Black Friday through December equals the combined weight of 151 Mini Coopers.
