Amazon is reporting a record-breaking holiday shopping season that saw more than 1.5 billion toys, electronics and household goods delivered amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“Amazonians around the world have truly shown what it means to be customer-centric and support our communities this year,” Jeff Wilke, CEO of worldwide consumer at Amazon, said in a press release on Tuesday (Dec. 29).
“When our customers — including healthcare workers on the front lines — most needed essential supplies, our teams and partners went above and beyond to stock and deliver those items,” he said.
Wilke added that Amazon developed its own coronavirus testing protocol “so we could help protect employees and deliver products to customers” and financially backed small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Further, the tech behemoth distributed more than $2.5 billion in bonus pay to front-line workers.
Among the most popular goods purchased over the holiday season were the iRobot Roomba 675, Lite-Brite Ultimate Classic Retro Toy, Jenga Classic Game, Just Dance 2021, Nintendo Switch Standard Edition and more.
Amazon’s fashion gift guide curated by Blair Eadie, Rocky Barnes, and Charli D’Amelio featured matching pajama sets and other fleece, as well as “bold kicks” and more.
“We delivered over 8 million items to alternative delivery locations this holiday season, including an Amazon Hub location, or Amazon physical retail store like Amazon 4-star, and Amazon Books,” the release said.
Social distancing amid the pandemic also gave a boost to Alexa video calling, with double the amount of calls compared to the same period in 2019. Aside from holiday music, customers also downloaded more than 1.5 times the amount of meditation.
Amazon merchants posted $4.8 billion in global sales Black Friday through Cyber Monday — a 60 percent surge over last year. Further, over 71,000 independent SMBs around the globe rang up more than $100,000 in holiday shopping sales as of Dec. 1.
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