Amazon Announces Record-Breaking Global Holiday Shopping Weekend

[cageymaru]

Amazon has coined the phrase "Turkey 5" to describe the 5 shopping days starting at Thanksgiving and ending on Cyber Monday. During this time period, Amazon sold more than 180 million items. Small and medium businesses selling on Amazon saw sales increase by 20% during this time period. Cyber Monday 2018 followed the yearly trend as Amazon's biggest sales day. When combined with Black Friday, Amazon sold 18 million toys and 13 million fashion items on those days. Even Whole Foods got into the act by setting a record for turkey sales this year.

Customers ordered more than four million toys and electronics on the mobile app on Black Friday. Fire TV continues to be the #1 streaming media player family in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan, across all retailers. The most popular named timer for Alexa on Thanksgiving Day was "turkey," followed by "pie," and "stuffing." Customers asked Alexa for nearly twice as many recipes and cooking advice this Thanksgiving as they did last year.

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

China is thrilled.

 

[Azrak]

Data Miners are even more thrilled.

 

[BSmith]

Not sure why, but I could not help and think, "That is sooo sad..."

I thought they have said they do not listen in with Alexa, yet they know what words were most used. Interesting.

Still think Alexa and her ilk are best used as trot line sinkers.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

Dropped $800 on Amazon yesterday and got the Christmas shopping completed. Done,and out of the way. This weekend we are making home made candy (family tradition) and mail them to family members in christmasy metal tins. Tree is up and house is decorated with garland with little LED light in it. I have strange craving to hear Perry Como and drink eggnog. (even though both are unhealthy)
The local stores won't feel jilted either because they get plenty of business from me. Many times they are competitive in their pricing and earn my business.

 

[DNMock]

Not sure why, but I could not help and think, "That is sooo sad..."

I thought they have said they do not listen in with Alexa, yet they know what words were most used. Interesting.

Still think Alexa and her ilk are best used as trot line sinkers.

Where did you read that? I'm not sure how else a service like that could even work without listening in. That data would be needed to optimize and upgrade the Alexa software so not using it for other things would literally be leaving money on the table. Now maybe they are only using it to target adds to you within the Amazon ecosystem, but you can bet your ass it's getting used for more than just optimizing Alexa.

 

[andrewaggb]

Not sure why, but I could not help and think, "That is sooo sad..."

I thought they have said they do not listen in with Alexa, yet they know what words were most used. Interesting.

Still think Alexa and her ilk are best used as trot line sinkers.

Alexa and Google Home bring out my tinfoil hat for sure. The potential for abuse is high and I lack the trust to use them. Anybody know off-hand what you consent to in their TOS?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Wonder how much of it is just people buying useless junk because it's a sale date(s) versus people who wanted useless junk but they knew it'd be cheaper if they waited to this date.

 

[steakman1971]

I picked up some hand tools/drill bits/saw blades at a good price from Amazon and some from Home Depot as well. I also knocked out a lot of my Christmas shopping online (not just Amazon - Ebay and Walmart for a few items). I basically looked to see who had the best prices.
I did not buy anything from local retailers yet - no way was I getting in the crowds. I'll still probably pick up a few things locally.
Gotta say - I waded through pages and pages of useless junk. I've bought my share of it over the years.

 

[seanreisk]

I'm old enough to say that I remember a time when people complained about Sears destroying the local economy and monopolizing Christmas. Then came KMart. And then WalMart. And now we have Amazon.

And also Harbor Freight. I like quality tools and I don't like Harbor Freight, but I always spend at least $15.00 whenever I'm in there.

This weekend we are making home made candy (family tradition) and mail them to family members in christmasy metal tins.

If you did it right you could make your home made candy, sell it on Amazon, and pay for the whole thing!

 

[leathco016]

Seems like those boycotts didn't do a thing. I love shopping via Amazon, but they really need some competition. They are the Wal-Mart of online shopping.

 

[Joust]

I'm old enough to say that I remember a time when people complained about Sears destroying the local economy and monopolizing Christmas. Then came KMart. And then WalMart. And now we have Amazon.

And also Harbor Freight. I like quality tools and I don't like Harbor Freight, but I always spend at least $15.00 whenever I'm in there.



If you did it right you could make your home made candy, sell it on Amazon, and pay for the whole thing!

Horror Fraught is great for certain things.

 

[harbingerofdoom]

Alexa and Google Home bring out my tinfoil hat for sure. The potential for abuse is high and I lack the trust to use them. Anybody know off-hand what you consent to in their TOS?

the TOS doesnt cover what is/isnt recorded- thats in the FAQ section:

3. Is Alexa recording all my conversations?

No. Echo devices are designed to detect only your chosen wake word (Alexa, Amazon, Computer or Echo). The device detects the wake word by identifying acoustic patterns that match the wake word. No audio is stored or sent to the cloud unless the device detects the wake word (or Alexa is activated by pressing a button).

 

[sfsuphysics]

I picked up some hand tools/drill bits/saw blades at a good price from Amazon and some from Home Depot as well. .

I find Amazon is extremely hit or miss when it comes to bits/blades. Too much super cheap crap out there, I got a bunch of hole saws and one that got used maybe 5 times was noticeably duller and also became visibly rusted once the machining oils got rubbed off.

Just too many businesses that get cheap Chinese crap and resell

 

[Dr. Righteous]

I'm old enough to say that I remember a time when people complained about Sears destroying the local economy and monopolizing Christmas. Then came KMart. And then WalMart. And now we have Amazon.
And also Harbor Freight. I like quality tools and I don't like Harbor Freight, but I always spend at least $15.00 whenever I'm in there.
If you did it right you could make your home made candy, sell it on Amazon, and pay for the whole thing!

Well, it isn't done with expensive ingredients. But the extended family isn't too discriminating anyway.

 

[5150Joker]

Well good thing I don't celebrate Christmas cuz I spent over $1800 on buying myself stuff online this past week instead. Ho ho hoooooo....

 

[Nobu]

Yeah...I didn't see any good deals (other than CPUs) that I was interested in on Amazon this time round. Got a 4K 43" LG TV for $280 from Target instead.

Too much junk on Amazon pretending to be name brand. I only buy when I'm confident of the quality or don't mind getting screwed, so high-dollar purchases (even if they're supposedly heavily discounted) are rare for me on Amazon.

 

[Mohonri]

We saw sales spike significantly on Monday, even though we didn't drop our prices at all.

People are weird.

 

[IcePickFreak]

 

[sfsuphysics]

Yeah...I didn't see any good deals (other than CPUs) that I was interested in on Amazon this time round..

For me just about anything I was interested in is normally price fixed under the guise of MAP, so any sales were at most 15 % off and if its 15% off at one place its that at every place. So I basically only got stuff I was going to get anyways just a little earlier than I wanted to get said 15% off