Pick up any good bargains on Cyber Monday? Amazon has just announced it to have been the single biggest shopping day (in terms of number of items sold) in the company’s history, with millions of people hitting its site to make the most of the day’s discounts and offers.
In the U.S., the best-selling item at Amazon.com on Monday was the all-new Echo Dot smart speaker, with “millions” sold, though Amazon declined to offer a specific figure. Other top sellers included Bose QC 25 noise-canceling headphones, the multi-use Instant Pot Duo, Michelle Obama’s autobiography Becoming, and the Jenga game.
Across the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, Amazon said customers ordered a staggering 180 million items via its U.S. site alone.
Globally, customers ordered more than 18 million toys and more than 13 million fashion items on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, the company said. The Echo Dot speaker was a big hit around the world, too, becoming the biggest-selling product on Amazon globally, from any manufacturer, in any category.
Amazon launched its first Echo smart speaker in 2014. The best-selling Echo Dot, like others in the range, is a hands-free, voice-controlled device that lets you communicate with Alexa, the speaker’s built-in digital assistant that allows you to request information, select music tracks, make calls, listen to audiobooks, control smart home devices, and more besides.
For those willing to haul themselves off the sofa and visit one of Amazon’s growing number of brick-and-mortar sites, which alongside its bookstores now include the recently opened Amazon 4-star stores, the best-selling products during the five-day shopping frenzy included the Amazon Smart Plug, the L.O.L. Surprise Series toys, and of course the Echo Dot.
“Black Friday and Cyber Monday continue to break records on Amazon year over year, which tells us that customers love shopping for deals to kick off the holiday shopping season,” Amazon’s Jeff Wilke said in a release.
Data from Adobe Digital Insights said that on Black Friday alone, online sales across most leading U.S.-based retailers topped $6.2 billion — up 23.6 percent on a year ago — with many shoppers snapping up laptops, as well as video games such as God of War and Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu.
If you’re still not done shopping and have enough cash to splash on another bargain or two, check out Digital Trends’ ongoing coverage of the best deals around.
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