Despite weak consumer sentiment, Amazon.com, one of the largest merchants on the internet, is a beacon in the retailer storm.
While many other offline retailers rushed to sell inventory, sometimes at drastically reduced prices, Amazon posted record sales for the holiday season. The internet retailer reported a preliminary sales figure of 6.3 items shipped worldwide as of December 15, 2008.
In a statement released by Amazon, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com said, “We are extremely grateful to our customers. We wish everyone happy holidays and the very best for the coming year.”
Amazon operates both domestically in North America (Canada and the US) and internationally with Amazon.co.uk, serving the UK; Amazon.de, serving Denmark; Amazon.co.jp, serving Japan; and Amazon.fr, serving France. The company also operates a large scale affiliate program that allows web publishers to earn a commission on sales generated from visitors to their website.
Scandals on Wall Street, unemployment, credit freezes and home foreclosures are all being blamed as factors for decreased holiday spending in the United States, but Amazon bucked this trend.
Amazon reports their official fourth quarter earnings in January.