Now the single biggest shopping day in company history

“We’re focused on making this holiday season more convenient than ever for our customers, especially given how short this holiday shopping season will be,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer, Amazon in a December 3 blog post. “We are thrilled that customers continue to come to Amazon in record numbers to discover what they need and want for the holidays. Thank you to our customers and employees all around the world for making this holiday shopping weekend the best yet.”

Highlights from the holiday shopping weekend include: 

• Tens of millions of toys were sold including LEGO Star Wars Darth Vader’s castle, the Frozen 2 edition of Monopoly, Jenga and Candy Land Kingdom of Sweet Adventures.
• On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, customers ordered more than 25 million items for the home.
• Smart home items were tops on millions of shopping lists with record-breaking sales of the iRobot Roomba 675 robot vacuum, Furbo Dog camera and Wemo Mini Smart Plug.
• Consumers purchased millions more Amazon devices this year compared to last year.
• On Cyber Monday, customers bought more than 4 million beauty products, including Oral B Genius Pro electric toothbrush, Lagunamoon Essential Oils top 6 gift set and L’Oreal Paris Voluminous Makeup Lash Paradise mascara.
• Top selling categories were toys, home, fashion, health and personal care.
• Best-selling in products on Cyber Monday in the U.S. included Keurig K-Café Coffee Maker, LEGO City Ambulance Helicopter 60179 building kit, and Play-Doh Sweet Shoppe Cookie Creations.
• Whole Foods sold an all-time high record number of turkeys for the third year in a row.
• Amazon delivered millions of grocery items to Prime members in the U.S. including best-selling items like honeycrisp apples, lemons and avocadoes.

Cyber Monday was a big win for independent third-party sellers too. Amazon reports that small and medium-sized businesses sold more items during Cyber Monday 2019 than during any other 24-hour period in Amazon history.

Amazon is hoping to keep Prime members coming back for more by making holding shopping fast, free and convenient with new ways to get groceries and packages.

• Prime members get fast, free grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods. (This is new. Previously, Prime members who used Amazon Fresh paid a monthly subscription fee. Now they can ask to be invited to join Amazon Fresh’s free delivery program if they live in one of the 2,000 markets where the service is available.)
• Prime members in the U.S. can get free one-day delivery on more than 10 million items and same-day delivery of millions of items in 46 major metropolitan markets.
• In addition to Amazon lockers and door-to-door delivery, Prime members can pick up their packages at Amazon Hub locations including in-store Counter pick-up spots at stores like Rite Aid, GNC and Stage.
• Prime members can also select an Amazon Day of the week when all of their packages will be delivered.

Insider Take:

Every year, Amazon ratchets its success up a notch with more brands, more sellers and more deals. Once again, they have exceeded their own sales records. Not only do they make shopping easy, but the Prime membership offers a multitude of shipping options. We are curious to see how many people signed up for a Prime membership during this holiday shopping weekend. It costs $119 a year if paid annually or $12.99 per month if paid monthly, following a 30-day trial. This is where Amazon really reaps the benefits. It offers some loss leaders during the biggest shopping weekend of the year in exchange for new members who are likely to stick around for the many benefits (e.g., Prime Video) of an Amazon Prime membership.

Dana Neuts is Subscription Insider's Senior Staff Writer, covering our daily subscription news as well as member features, case studies, and reports.  

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