Submitted by: Dave Furness

Amazon got more than what it asked for last Christmas, hence calling the 2016 holiday season the best ever.

The giant retailer shipped more than one billion items worldwide, but the highlight was selling millions of its voice-controlled Alexa devices.

Sales of Amazon Echo and Echo Dot were nine times higher this holiday season than they were during the same period in 2015.

Despite our best efforts and ramped-up production, we still had trouble keeping them in stock, said Jeff Wilke, CEO of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon.

Orders for Echo and Echo Dot continuously poured into Amazon on Dec. 23, the busiest day for Prime Now deliveries as customers ordered 3x more items compared to the previous year.

However, no other day was busier than Dec. 19 as Amazon claimed it was the peak worldwide shipping day.

Aside from the impressive sales of Echo devices, Handmade at Amazon also made a notable performance a month earlier on Cyber Monday.

Amazons one-year old category for handcrafted goods saw a 200 percent increase in sales, which is way more than what it made a year ago.

More Amazon Shoppers Mobile Devices

A big number of Amazon customers shopped through their mobile devices over the holidays.

Seventy-two percent of customers engaged in M-commerce, while those who used the free Amazon mobile app to shop grew by 56%.

According to Amazon, 46 electronics and 36 toys were purchased per second on a mobile device throughout Cyber Monday.

Thanks to 45,000 robots who worked hand in hand with the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) team, these customers got their orders delivered to their doorstep on time.

Record-breaking Sales for Third-party Sellers

Now we couldnt go without congratulating you and other Amazon sellers who made a killing over the holidays.

It came as no surprise that the items shipped by FBA for third-party sellers grew more than 50%.

Based on Amazons data, its third-party sellers worldwide received orders for 28 million items as early as Cyber Mondaythats a 21.7% increase from what they got on Cyber Monday in 2015.

Whats more, the number of sellers on Amazon using FBA jumped to 70%.

Sellers are choosing Amazon because we help them build and grow their businesses with impactful programs like Seller Fulfilled Prime, and were proud of the fact that sellers are reinvesting their success into their local communities by creating jobs, said Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace.

Many of the sellers knew as early as Black Friday that 2016 was going to end with a bang for them, as they got 10x more online customers than a year ago.

Those whose products are with the Seller Fulfilled Prime program got millions of orders from Prime members, who very happily took advantage of the free two-day or next-day shipping.

Way to go!

Once again, we saw what knowing what to sell and where to sell can bring to ones business.

May you and your business flourish all the more in 2017.

What were your bestselling products during the holiday season?

About the Author: Online sellers don’t be left behind. Multichannel marketing is the quickest route to reach your customers. Follow our tutorials on Magento, M2E Pro, Magmi and other eCommerce tools on

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, and sell more on Amazon, eBay and other marketplaces. See you there!

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