Dive Brief
- Following its October Prime Day sales success, Amazon announced that its Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping event between Nov. 17 and Nov. 27 exceeded sales in previous years, but the e-commerce giant declined to share exact figures.
- Shoppers bought 500 million items from independent sellers on its platform, the company said. Citing data from the analytics firm Profitero, Amazon claimed to offer 16% lower online prices in 15 product categories compared to other major U.S. retailers.
- Orders made via Buy with Prime increased more than 300% compared to the daily average last month, Amazon said.
Dive Insight
An Amazon spokesperson declined to share the company’s year-over-year Cyber Week sales figures with Retail Dive. The company was also tight-lipped about its October sales performance, opting only to share that it sold “hundreds of millions of items” during the Prime Big Deal Days event.
In its announcement, the retailer also said that it had reached its fastest delivery speeds in the U.S. and is on pace to deliver orders at the quickest delivery speed for Prime members in its 29-year run. In September, the company announced plans to hire 250,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal workers to fill its transportation and fulfillment center positions, up from 150,000 staffers the previous year.
In addition to Amazon, retailers overall have seen a bump in sales during Cyber Week and throughout the month of November, according to an Adobe Analytics report released Tuesday. While Cyber Monday sales rose 9.6% year-over-year to $12.4 billion, e-commerce sales between Nov. 1 and Nov. 27 increased 7.3% from last year to $109.3 billion.
“We kicked off the holiday season with Prime Big Deal Days in October, and extended our Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shopping event to 11 days to accommodate even more deals over more days to make shopping more convenient for customers—helping them save nearly 70% more than the same period last year,” Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, said in a statement. “There are many customers who are still checking off their shopping lists, and we are excited to announce that we will have millions more deals on a wide selection of products to come, with new deals dropping every day through Dec. 24, along with fast, convenient delivery options.”
