Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shopping have become massive traditions. With the advent of e-commerce, it’s far more convenient to shop during the Thanksgiving holidays too. Therefore it’s not surprising to hear reports that Amazon, the biggest online retailer on the planet, has accounted for nearly half of the total Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Amazon has, reportedly, announced that the recent Black Friday shopping weekend was the best ever. This is in reference to the total sales recorded for Amazon devices. Although traditionally Amazon does not release the exact number of devices sold during a certain period, it often gives a rough estimate that captures the magnitude of the success being reported. This time around, the American e-commerce giant stated that it has sold millions of Alexa devices during the Black Friday weekend.
The company added that their Amazon Fire TV Stick that comes with the Alexa Voice Remote and the Echo Dot were two of the best-selling Amazon devices during the weekend.
But despite what appears to be a stellar sales performance, it doesn’t come as a surprise for the people who have followed Amazon lately. The retailer has been pushing its devices a lot this year. For instance, Amazon has tried to incentivize customers by giving deep discounts for these devices. It appears that the strategy is achieving a lot of success.
For example, on Cyber Monday, the price of the Echo Dot was significantly slashed. The device was retailing at $29.99. This was the lowest ever retail price for this Alexa-powered speaker. Amazon also noted that in addition to this discount, efforts to sell the device on its brick-and-mortar stores were also explored. It should be remembered that Amazon recently acquired Whole Foods so there is a significant amount of leverage in the brick-and-mortar space for the largest online retailer. Data shows that the Echo Dot was also the best-selling device in Whole Food locations around the country.
The same strategy was explored with the Fire TV Stick. The device was discounted by a whopping $15. During the weekend sale, the Fire TV Stick was retailing at $24.99. Compare this price to the Roku Streaming Stick, the biggest rival to the Amazon’s Fire Stick, which was retailing at almost double the price. Amazon confirmed that the total number of Fire TV Sticks sold this year was 2.7 times more compared to the same period last year.
It’s not yet clear exactly how many Alexa devices have been sold. Amazon hasn’t given a lot of specific details but some analysts are putting the number at above 20 million. It is estimated that shoppers in the US alone spent just little over $5 billion in this year’s Black Friday while Cyber Monday sales hit $6.59 billion. Although Amazon still remains a dominant e-commerce player, there is no doubt that many other customers have decided again to spread their dollars across various outlets.
