The 2017 holiday shopping season brought record sales to Amazon
Many consumers feel that they get a good value by spending $99 a year for a Amazon Prime membership. With a subscription, members get same day, one day or two day delivery of certain products. Subscribers also get free access to Amazon Prime streaming video and streaming music. During one week of this year's holiday shopping season, the company added 4 million new subscribers who signed up for a free trial or paid membership to Prime.
According to Amazon, the company set a record for holiday sales this year. Amazon sold millions more of new devices in 2017 compared to 2016's figures. In addition:
source: Amazon
- The Amazon Echo line of smart speakers had its best holiday season ever, led by the Echo Dot. The hockey puck look alike snagged more sales than any other product made by any manufacturer during the holiday shopping period.
- Echo Dot, Echo Spot and Echo Buttons all sold out.
- Fire Kids Edition tablets saw sales rise 240% year-over-year.
- Kindle tablets celebrated its tenth holiday shopping season.
- Many sales were made by Amazon customers ordering through the Alexa personal assistant. Most popular products ordered this way include the Echo Dot and the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote.
- The most requested song from Alexa during the holidays was "Jingle Bells." The East Coast of the U.S. requested holiday music from Alexa 250% more than the West Coast did.
- AR View was used the most on Cyber Monday. The most popular item viewed with AR view throughout this holiday season was a black chair with ottoman. Top categories viewed with AR view are furniture, toys, Amazon devices, kitchen items and consumer electronics.
- Four times the amount of music was streamed over Alexa during the holiday season on a year-over-year basis.
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