Amazon Sales During Christmas Season Sets Records!

Wow! Amazon had a great Christmas sales season!

Amazon Prime tops 20 million members as company touts its best holiday season ever

Geekwire – “Amazon is exiting the 2013 holiday season with ‘tens of millions’ of Amazon Prime members, according to a statement this morning from CEO Jeff Bezos — signaling that the company has reached at least 20 million members for its $79/year subscription program.

Overall, Amazon says the 2013 holiday season was its ‘best ever,’ with more than 36.8 million items ordered on Cyber Monday alone. It isn’t a surprise that the holiday season set a new record, given the steady growth in e-commerce sales worldwide. The company didn’t disclose sales figures, so the full impact won’t be apparent until Amazon reports fourth-quarter earnings.

Bezos’ Amazon Prime statement, however, is significant because it’s the closest the company has come to giving an official count for its annual membership program. An an estimate by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners put the total at more than 16 million as of Sept. 30, but Amazon usually keeps the official number under wraps.

Amazon said in a news release, ‘Prime was so popular this holiday, that Amazon limited new Prime membership signups during peak periods to ensure service to current members was not impacted by the surge in new membership.’

One potential factor in that surge: Amazon’s decision this fall to raise the limit for free Super Saver Shipping (for non-Prime members) from $25 to $35, which may have caused more customers to consider Prime membership, for its core benefit of free shipping.

The growth in Prime membership has meaningful implications for the company, given the key role that Amazon Prime plays in generating repeat business and customer loyalty for Amazon. Prime members receive free two-day shipping on eligible items, in addition to Prime Instant Video streaming and Kindle book borrowing.

Amazon said this morning that it added 1 million Amazon Prime members during the third week of December alone, in the build-up to Christmas.

‘Amazon Prime membership continues to grow, and we now have tens of millions of members worldwide. They benefit from all-you-can-eat free two-day shipping on millions of eligible items and our members have a voracious appetite,’ said Bezo in Amazon’s post-Christmas news release this morning. ‘We are extremely grateful to our customers around the world and wish everyone the very best for the coming year.’

The company noted that a record number of Prime items were shipped on Amazon’s peak shopping day. That was part of an overall spike in shipments that overwhelmed UPS and FedEx, causing delays in some Christmas packages.

A company spokeswoman said via email this morning, ‘Amazon fulfillment centers processed and tendered customer orders to delivery carriers on time for holiday delivery. We are reviewing the performance of the delivery carriers.'”

A Facebook Conversation on Chromebooks

I recently posted that I got a Chromebook C720P for Christmas, and that I was excited, and a Facebook Friend sent me some questions, here’s how the discussion went…


Facebook Friend:
Hi Doc… last week I was looking at the Samsung Chromebook (Acer and Samsung) and I’m still hesitating a little on it. Now you show up talking all excited about it. Tell more about it. I understand you’ve got the Acer. Do you like it better than the Samsung? Is that the one around $250? I’m asking this cause I saw one on line (think it was Samsung) for around $800+. Give me your best thoughts.

Dr. Bill:
This one, the Acer C720P, has a touchscreen. Before this, to get a Chromebook with a touchscreen was $1400.00 – this one is high end, fast, and has a touchscreen, but it is only $299.00 on Amazon. It is REALLY nice if you “live” in the Google-sphere. I also have a Google Nexus 10 tablet and a Google Chromecast on my TV, so I am pretty into Google tech. I am working toward seeing if I can do all my computing for a week just off the Chromebook. Quite a challenge for me as much computer related work as I do. It is very fast, and comes up nearly instantly!

Facebook Friend:
Thank you, appreciate the info. Just one more question if you don’t mind… lately I’ve seen some laptops with touchscreen. Honestly, I don’t like it. To me it doesn’t make any sense… but I could be wrong. Educate me on this.

Dr. Bill:
I know what you mean. “They,” the designers of such things, are pushing us to a touchscreen world, because the prevailing theory is that the future of computing is tablet-like devices. According to these folks we are now in a “post-PC” era (Google that phrase for more discussion.) I believe that Cloud PC technology like the Chromebook can be a viable platform… but, I also wanted to have the option to move toward the “touch-screen” future that they are predicting… hedge my bet, so to speak. Also, if the Chrome OS experience is not as viable as I think it will be, I can install Ubuntu Linux on it, and have a nice touch-screen Linux laptop. That’s the plan, anyway!

Oh, forgot to mention that the 720 (without the “P”) is 50 bucks less and does not have a touchscreen.

Facebook Friend:
Thanks for the insight. Also reminds me some… close to 30 years… and my first cellphone (from the company I was working for,) was one of those huge ones that you could use in the car or carry all those pounds. And the whole thing was basically just the battery. In those days people started talking about what we have today. That really sounded like it was a Dick Tracy thing. It really made no sense at all.
A few years back, I would say some 15 years, I heard people talking about “in the future” computers with no Hard Drive. Everything would workout from a big computer installed somewhere. Again… no sense at all. And look where we are now!


The bottom line is, things are always changing, and we have to be open to change… that’s how we stay current with the directions that things are moving toward. So, join me for the adventure ahead in computing!