Ecommerce sellers saw gifts from Santa this year, and they saw them weeks before the jolly old elf descended chimneys across the land. According to various industry reports, 2010 is in track to break several ecommerce holiday sales records. Since we just finished up the holiday a few days ago, comprehensive reports aren’t yet available, but here’s what the big boys of ecommerce had to report:
Amazon.com
Amazon’s peak sales day this year was November 29th, otherwise known as Cyber Monday. Amazon announced that Cyber Monday shoppers worldwide ordered 13.7 million items that day, which translates to 158 items per second and the biggest sales day Amazon has ever seen.
The powers that be at Amazon were also likely thrilled to see that the Kindle replaced Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as the best selling Amazon product of all time. More Kindle books and apps were downloaded on Christmas Day 2010 than on any other day in history.
eBay.com
EBay focused on their mobile offerings this year, to fantastic results. They reported that Sunday, December 12th, or “Mobile Sunday” once again delivered, breaking records and resulting in over $5 million in gross merchant volume. That sales volume was also up 38% from mobile eBay sales on Cyber Monday.
Will ecommerce sellers be adding Mobile Sunday into our must-know holiday lexicon in 2011?
Shipping
Due to the rise of eCommerce, FedEx saw their busiest shipping day ever on Monday, December 13th. They moved over 16 billion shipments worldwide, up from 14.2 million last year. UPS saw even bigger shipping numbers on Wednesday, December 22, when they moved an estimated 24 million shipments in 24 hours.
The Future is Bright
There’s no question that holiday shoppers have embraced ecommerce. By this point, etailers know to focus on Cyber Monday and the early weeks of December. But what’s the next big thing? As we predicted here at the Logicblock blog earlier this year, it appears that mobile is the next big trend in online shopping. Online sellers have all year – until next year’s mid-December “Mobile Sunday” – to create mobile solutions for their shoppers. Make that year count! The clock is ticking down to Holiday Seasons 2011…