2008 holiday season was ‘best ever’- Amazon said
Online retailer Amazon called this holiday season its “best ever,” saying Friday that it saw a 17% increase in orders on its busiest day – a rare piece of good news in a season that has been far from merry for most retailers, including online businesses.
Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company told. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44% rise over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day.
The company didn’t provide dollar figures and wouldn’t say whether the average value of orders had changed, & the jumps it reported Friday are in line with increases Amazon has seen since it started releasing the figures in 2002.
Amazon’s best-sellers included the Nintendo Wii game console, Samsung’s 52-inch LCD HDTV and Apple iPod touch.
Analysts agreed Amazon’s report was good news for the online shopping giant, but they were separated over whether the results indicate strength in online commerce in general.
Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said Amazon’s experience shows the current economy is favoring discount retailers, both online and offline.
“The Amazon story doesn’t surprise me because Amazon has always traditionally been a leader on price, and they’re one of the first places consumers go when they’re looking for things online,” Mulpuru said. “In many ways they’re like the Wal-Mart of the online world.”
Wal-Mart is one of very few traditional retailers where revenue has risen this holiday season over last.
Holiday sales typically account for 30-50% of a retailer’s annual total, but rising unemployment, home foreclosures, the stock market decline & other economic worries led many shoppers to slash their shopping budgets this year.
Online shopping may have gotten a boost from winter storms during last two weeks before Christmas, which made travel to brick-and-mortar stores more difficult.
Devitt said Amazon benefited from a vast infrastructure that allows for quicker, more reliable shipping than most of its online peers offer. He called Amazon’s announcement an “extremely positive data point” and said the company is “uniquely positioned to do well in an environment like this.”
Amazon’s shares gained 34 cents to close Friday at $51.78, a 0.7% rise.
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