News November 30, 2017
Retailers and Promo Firms Hit Cyber Monday Sales Highs
This year’s Cyber Monday was the single biggest shopping day worldwide in Amazon’s history, and the biggest day ever for small businesses and entrepreneurs selling on Amazon, the company announced on Wednesday. From small businesses alone, nearly 140 million items were purchased on Amazon.com. Amazon App orders increased more than 50% from last year.
“Amazon customers shopped at record levels during the Turkey 5, ordering hundreds of millions of products from toys to fashion to electronics and Amazon devices,” Jeff Wilke, CEO of the company’s Worldwide Consumer business, said in a press release. Cyber Monday transactions surpassed those of Prime Day back in July, the company’s previous record-holder. This year’s top-selling item was the Echo Dot.
Amazon isn’t the only retailer benefiting from strong holiday sales. Adobe announced overall Cyber Monday sales reached $6.5 billion, up 16.8% from 2016 and making Monday the largest online shopping day in U.S. history. Mobile had a record day as well, as sales reached $2 billion for the first time.
Retail spread the wealth over to the promotional products industry, according to BEL USA, parent company of supplier BEL Promo (asi/39552) and distributors DiscountMugs.com (asi/181120) and Branders.com (asi/145021).
Sai Koppaka, president and CEO of BEL, said the company reached its highest sales ever on Cyber Monday, up more than 20% from last year. “It was three times larger than a regular day for all our brands,” said Koppaka, who attributes the growth to macroeconomic conditions. “The economy is doing really well, small business is excited about tax cuts, GDP growth is strong. More and more businesses are buying online.”
However, the unprecedented demand has put a strain on production capabilities, Koppaka said. If the next week continues to remain strong, BEL could potentially have delay issues. “This time of the year is for us to gain market share,” he said. “We hope to continue to meet our promises to customers.”