Amazon Kindle Set Black Friday Sales Records

Black Friday was red hot for Amazon.com.

According to a statement released by the web retail giant, customers purchased four times as many Kindles as they had on the previous year's Black Friday.

Though Amazon's release was shot on details, it did say that sales were helped significantly by the 2-month-old Kindle Fire, the day's bestselling Kindle model. Many customers even bought multiple Kindles, presumably keeping one for themselves and giving the other as a gift.

But Kindle wasn't Amazon's only win of the weekend. As reported by Comscore, an Internet research marketing company, Amazon was the most visited retail site, with 50 percent more traffic than other top sites like Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple. (All of these sites saw traffic gains in the double digits on November 25.)

Despite the fact that Apple's Black Friday deals were fairly conservative compared to other retailers, the Cupertino-based retailer reportedly saw record sales, as well. 9to5 Mac reports that, Black Friday was Apple's biggest sales day of all time.

While exact numbers haven't been released, an Apple insider reportedly told 9to5 Mac that by 7 p.m. on November 25, Apple had already surpassed their expected fourfold increase in sales. The MacBook Air and iPad were the strongest sellers of the day, discounted by $101 and $41 respectively.

Overall, online holiday spending appears to be way up. According to comScore, 50 million Americans visited online stores on Black Friday, where they spent $816 million, an increase of 26 percent since last year. In the first 25 days of November, Americans spent $12.7 billion online, which is 15 percent more than in the same time period in 2010. Which is saying something since online shopping certainly wasn't small potatoes then.

By contrast, Cyber Monday 2010 brought in over $1 billion and was the single biggest day of online spending ever. Revenues for this year's Cyber Monday are supposed to be even bigger, with 78 percent of retailers offering some kind of online promotion.

According to a statement released by Shop.org, online retailers aren't just trying to reach cyber shoppers through their websites but also on customers' mobile devices. The number of customers who plan on using their mobile devices to shop on Cyber Monday has more than tripled since 2009. According to Shop.org, 17.8 million say they will use their phones or tablets to shop on November 28.

To see what kind of deals are available to Cyber Monday shoppers, click here to view our roundup of sales from around the web.

Comments

[FreelanceWriter]

07:45 PM on 11/29/2011

I was actually disappointed by the Black Friday offerings this year. So I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed and wait for the post-Christmas sales when the retailers REALLY get desperate about moving product. Maybe it's just me, but it always seems like I score better stuff on sale then -- in that dead week between Christmas and New Years -- as opposed to Black Friday.

But for the sake of the economy AND for the sake of those who were unemployed, but now have at least picked up some seasonal work, I'm glad people are shopping like crazy.

[thx1139]

06:01 PM on 11/29/2011

Microsoft announced today that last week nearly 1 million Xbox 360s were sold. They sold 600,000 last year.

[Lucille]

01:55 PM on 11/29/2011

Made two purchases online, both items reduced price, no tax on one item and free shipping on both. One item was delivered today and the other later this week. I love online shopping, and wild horses could not get me to go to any store on Black Friday. I do most of my shopping online anyway.

[Douglas Mappin]

12:55 AM on 11/29/2011

Both the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet are superior to the Kindle Fire! Kindle Fire has 8 GB of non-expandable memory. Both of Barnes (8GB) & Nobles' (16 GB) devices are expandable up to 32 GB!

What is it with Amazn centric articles??? Personally, I find Amazon just as predatory and detrimental to local businesses as Wal Mart. Why are Amazon sales tax exempt???

[JJ Clark]

08:24 AM on 11/29/2011

Local businesses like Wal Mart?! That's a first...

[iDrifter]

12:24 PM on 11/29/2011

Point taken, my interpretation of "local business" was brick and motor, the local physical presence of the store.

[JJ Clark]

08:25 AM on 11/29/2011

Huffpo's AOL merger really sucks. See above:

[Tchouket Inou Mohamed]

02:24 PM on 11/28/2011

Instructables user dimovi took an old LCD monitor and moved the top polarizer from the surface of the screen to a pair of glasses worn by the user...Read more »http://new3tech.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-privacy-monitor-lcd-panel-mod.html

[DanGreen]

02:09 PM on 11/28/2011

"Shot on details?" Short on details?

[JWoode]

12:53 PM on 11/28/2011

I had a quiet day with the family and ate leftovers.. didn't spend a dime and kept my credit cards in my wallet. I also missed seeing shoppers stabbing, tear gassing, and trampling each other.

[imayes]

12:56 PM on 11/28/2011

No biggie. YouTube and Media Takeout will help show you what you've missed from the safety of your own home. I avoided that mess as well.

[ontariogirl]

12:42 PM on 11/28/2011

I got the best deal. A friend was dividing plants in her garden. Best Black Friday ever. Free!!!

[ResearchtheFacts]

12:21 PM on 11/28/2011

Which lie is it because CNN reported 52 billion this morning in total BF sales?  Also, notice no concrete sales figures all supposition. They are really laying on the propaganda this year. When you factor in reality and returns it will be a much different picture.

[art4618]

12:49 PM on 11/28/2011

The CNN figure you quote is for retail sales on BF. This article is limiting itself to just online sales. That's why the figures differ. Apples and oranges.

[ResearchtheFacts]

02:56 PM on 11/28/2011

It is all retail if you are not paying wholesale prices for it.