Amazon said that it sold over billion items around the world making this holiday season the biggest one to date since customers turned to the site rather than venturing to the physical stores.
However, we will have to wait for the company’s fourth financial results coming around mid-to-late January to find out more specifications as far as the sales are concerned. “Through Cyber Monday, 2020 has been the largest holiday shopping season so far in our company’s history thanks to customers around the world,” Amazon wrote.
The following are some of the services which were provided by the company which made sales more accessible.
- Package pick-up: “We delivered over 8 million items to alternative delivery locations this holiday season, including an Amazon Hub location, or Amazon physical retail store like Amazon 4-star, and Amazon Books.” This is an option where customers are not only given more ways to pick up their items (hence, more choices for customers) but it also avoids the need for last-mile delivery.
- Shopping through smart speakers (Alexa): with technological advancement, Amazon is putting its understanding of shopping behavior to use in its smart-speaker technology. “Alexa helped tens of millions of customers find the perfect gift for everyone on their list this year by providing gift suggestions and helping customers make and share lists, add items to carts, and make purchases.”
- Uplifting third-party leverages- such a strategy allows Amazon to increase its reach and also help small and medium-sized ventures grow their business. As proof of this, Amazon says 71,000 small- and medium-sized businesses worldwide surpassed $100,000 in sales so far this holiday season. But Amazon’s own brands also appear to have sold gangbusters.
In addition to this, numerous educational events were hosted by the company for small- and medium-sized businesses around the world, with more than 150,000 attendees, through programs like Amazon Small Business Academy.
Over the course of this year, Amazon has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of changing shopping habits due to the pandemic. This growth has fueled a massive hiring spree at the company, The New York Times reports, with Amazon adding 427,300 employees to its global workforce over the course of ten months.