Amazon has revealed that the 2013 holiday shopping season was their biggest to date across the board. Customers purchased more than 36.8 million items during Cyber Monday - or about 426 items every second - and Amazon sold more than a million Prime annual memberships during the third week of December.
Amazon said the Cyber Monday shopping weekend was the best ever for Kindle Fire and Kindle e-readers according to a press release from the company. And those that needed some assistance with their new device via the Mayday button only had to wait about nine seconds to get in touch with a tech advisor - pretty impressive.
Other hot items this year include the new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. During their respective peak sales, customers purchased more than 1,000 systems per minute. Rainbow Looms, Hot Wheels, miniature flashlights and running shoes were also well shopped for this year.
Elsewhere, Amazon said their Prime Instant Video catalog swelled from 33,000 movies and television episodes to more than 40,000 during 2013 while Amazon Instant Video now plays host to more than 150,000 titles. They still have some work to do in catching up to the popularity and offerings from rival Netflix although plans to shoot all upcoming original content in 4K Ultra HD will certainly help matters.
It wasn't all great news this holiday season, however, as the huge influx of last-minute packages being shipped meant some didn't arrive on time. Affected customers will be refunded for shipping charges and the company will also offer a $20 gift card for the inconvenience.