Amazon says it had best-ever Thanksgiving holiday week with record sales and items sold
Amazon said it set new company records during the Thanksgiving-to-Cyber Monday stretch, reporting its best-ever holiday week by both total sales and number of items sold. The company credited deep seasonal discounts, faster delivery options, and strong demand across its marketplace for the performance, while declining to disclose specific revenue figures or growth rates.
The results underscore the ongoing strength of e-commerce during the U.S. holiday shopping season and suggest consumers remained responsive to promotions despite lingering concerns about inflation and household budgets. Amazon said customers shopped heavily throughout the entire week rather than concentrating purchases on a single day, a pattern that has become more pronounced as retailers launch deals earlier and keep them running longer.
Amazon highlighted broad-based demand across categories that historically lead the season, including electronics, toys, home and kitchen, beauty, apparel, and gift cards. The company also pointed to robust sales of its own devices and services, saying interest in smart home products, streaming devices, and e-readers was particularly strong. While it did not provide a breakdown by category, Amazon said many of its top-selling items came from small and medium-sized businesses selling through its marketplace.
Third-party sellers—an increasingly important contributor to Amazon’s profitability—were once again a focal point. The company said independent merchants recorded record unit sales and that its promotional programs helped drive traffic to smaller brands throughout the week. Marketplace sales typically carry higher margins for Amazon than first-party retail because the company collects fees and advertising revenue without taking on inventory risk at the same scale.
Logistics and delivery were also central to the company’s message. Amazon said its expanded same-day and one-day delivery network enabled it to keep pace with peak order volumes while meeting tighter shipping expectations. The retailer has been reconfiguring its U.S. fulfillment footprint into more localized regions to shorten delivery routes and reduce costs, a shift executives have said should improve both customer experience and margins. During the holiday week, the company emphasized reliable delivery estimates and free returns as key conversion drivers.
Advertising likely played a role as well. Brands and sellers tend to increase spending on sponsored product listings and display ads during peak shopping periods to win visibility in crowded search results. While Amazon did not quantify the contribution of ads, its advertising services segment has grown rapidly in recent years and has become a major profit engine that complements the retail business, especially during promotional weeks.
Industry data from third-party trackers indicated that U.S. online sales rose year over year across Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, helped by deeper discounts in categories such as electronics and toys. Buy now, pay later services and store pickup options continued to influence shopper behavior, with consumers mixing online browsing, mobile purchasing, and omnichannel fulfillment to capture deals while minimizing shipping constraints. Against that backdrop, Amazon’s record week suggests it captured an outsized share of digital spend.
Even so, strong unit volumes do not automatically translate into outsized profitability. Heavy discounting, aggressive promotions, and free shipping all weigh on margins, particularly in first-party retail. Amazon has historically balanced those pressures with the higher-margin contributions of its marketplace, advertising, and Prime membership, as well as with efficiency gains in its fulfillment network. Investors will look for signs that cost reductions in logistics and improved mix toward third-party sales offset promotional intensity during the quarter.
The results set the tone for the remainder of the peak season, when retailers typically process a wave of last-minute orders and returns. Amazon said it will continue rolling out fresh deals in the run-up to shipping cutoffs and expects strong demand for expedited delivery. Customer service capacity, inventory availability on hot items, and return logistics will be key variables as the season progresses.
For consumers, the record week reflects a holiday landscape where the best offers can appear at any time over a multi-week span rather than on a single day. For brands and sellers, it highlights the importance of advertising, inventory planning, and competitive pricing in a marketplace where visibility and speed can make the difference between breaking out and getting buried. And for Amazon, the milestone underscores the strategic value of its marketplace, logistics network, and advertising platform working in concert during the most important sales period of the year.
Amazon plans to share additional details about holiday performance when it reports fourth-quarter results early next year. Until then, the company’s record-setting Thanksgiving week points to resilient online demand and a competitive advantage in delivering at scale when it matters most.
