How was your December 25? Amazon has delivered its annual post-Christmas debrief and the headline news is that another 10 million customers across the world have signed up for the $99-a-year Amazon Prime service (likely lured in by the offer of two-day shipping on those last-minute gifts). It seems to have been another bumper year for Amazon after a record-breaking Christmas this time last year.
Prime members can take advantage of a whole host of benefits, as Amazon is always keen to point out: Prime Instant Video, the Kindle Owners Lending Library, Prime Music, Prime Photos, Prime Pantry, Amazon Elements and a pile of exclusive deals and content offers. “We are working hard to make Prime even better and expanding the recently launched Prime Now to additional cities in 2015,” commented CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, referring to the one-hour delivery service that’s just been introduced in New York.
As usual, Amazon has released some statistics and details about its holiday season activities to the press. The Internet retailer shipped to 185 countries over Christmas, while the use of the same-day delivery service was up 10 times over the equivalent period in 2013; the last item ordered and delivered for Christmas was placed at 10:24pm on Christmas Eve and arrived (via Prime Now) at 11:06pm.
Elsewhere Amazon was eager to flag up the fact that its Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire HD 6 and Fire HD 7 gadgets all did well in terms of sales. The Fire TV Stick has been declared the fastest-selling Amazon device ever — not bad when you weigh up some of the competition — and as in 2013 Cyber Monday was Amazon’s busiest shopping day. Almost 60 percent of buyers were using a mobile device to make purchases.
Amazon also announced the best-selling products in a plethora of different categories, so see if you had any of these under your tree: Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids by Rob Elliott (books), The Burning Room by Michael Connelly (Kindle books), Guardians of the Galaxy (movies), Disney Frozen Sparkle Princess Elsa doll (toys), GoPro Hero 4 Silver (cameras), Acer C720 Chromebook (computers), Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (video games) and Stanley 66-344 4-in-1 Pocket Screwdriver (tools).
