These are Amazon’s best-selling items during 2020’s holiday season so far

All year retailers and industry pundits have theorized about how holiday sales will be impacted due to the ever-increasing spread of the pandemic. And thanks to Amazon, now we have some ideas. The company has revealed that it has had a gangbusters holiday shopping season so far. Matter of fact, Amazon says its customers have made “the 2020 holiday season our biggest yet.”

But while most industry experts count Black Friday, or at the earliest, Thanksgiving week, as the start to holiday sales, Amazon considers the 2020 holiday season to have begun in October this year, right after their delayed Prime Day. Still, some of its numbers are interesting because they reveal that the pandemic has had a positive impact on online sales. Among Amazon’s most interesting figures:

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, small- and medium-size independent businesses selling on Amazon’s platform had over $4.8 billion in worldwide sales—a 60% increase from last year.
Over 71,000 small- and medium-size independent businesses selling on Amazon’s platform have made over $100,000 since Amazon’s holiday season began in October.
Those small- and medium-size businesses have sold, on average, 9,500 products per minute during Amazon’s holiday season to date.

As for what categories of products have been the most popular, Amazon says “self-care, nesting at home, and cozy comfort are top trends in the U.S., with Beauty, Home, and Fashion among top categories shopped so far.” And as for the most popular products on Amazon during the pandemic’s holiday season, they are:

All-new Echo Dot
Barack Obama’s A Promised Land memoir
REVLON One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer Hot Air Brush
Lite-Brite Ultimate Classic toy
Amazon Smart Plug
23andMe Health + Ancestry Service: Personal Genetic DNA Test

Amazon says some of the top Black Friday-specific holiday sellers included the all-new Echo Dot, the company’s Fire TV Stick 4K, the Shark IQ Robot Self-Empty Robot Vacuum, and the Philips Sonicare ProtectiveClean Electric Toothbrush.