Cyber Monday 2019 become the biggest online sales day ever in the United States. E-commerce companies like Amazon are trying to keep pace.

CGTN’s Hendrik Sybrandy reports.

Melissa Akaka and her friends Ashley and Collette were at their posts on Cyber Monday, in Akaka’s Colorado living room.

Their mission: to complete as much of their Christmas shopping in one day, on their computers. Both from personal experience and because she teaches marketing at the University of Denver, Akaka knows the holiday shopping experience has changed.

“I became tired of being frantic and buying gifts at the last minute and shipping them because most of my family and friends don’t live in this area,” Akaka said.

In fact, one estimate by Adobe Analytics suggests the 2019 Cyber Monday in the U.S., the Monday right after the Thanksgiving holiday will become the biggest online sales day ever, at $9.4 billion. U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon is leading the way. Sure enough, its fulfillment center in Thornton, Colorado was humming.

“This is like our Super Bowl, so you’re seeing behind the scenes kind of in Santa’s workshop where we’re making a lot of gifts happen for customers all over the world,” said Angie Newman, an Amazon spokesperson.

Newman said there were Cyber Monday sales and discounts just about everywhere you looked.

“We have deals across devices, electronics, fashion, home goods, really across the board,” she said.

An average of 1,500 Amazon “associates” work in the center on a typical day. That number was 2,000 on this Cyber Monday. Lots of 12-hour shifts. It was all hands on deck.

The push is on, more than ever, for online retailers to get packages out the door and to customers’ doorsteps fast. It helps to be an Amazon Prime member, but…“,There are millions of items for our customers to get in two days and less, whether you’re a Prime member or not, and our Prime members can sometimes get packages in under two hours,” Newman said.

Akaka said she’s noticed that deals come and go in this online shopping age. They aren’t always confined to this one particular day.

“We wait for the deals and we wait for the sales and sometimes it works against us consumers because they might go away or the sale might change or the product might run out before we get to it,” she said.

Still, the Cyber Monday shopping frenzy continues. In many ways, Black Friday has now been eclipsed by this event. Warehouses like Amazon’s were in overdrive and consumers were buying from the comfort of their homes in the hopes that their Christmas lists would be considerably shorter by the end of the day.

“I’m planning to get it all done today,” Akaka said confidently, turning back to her computer screen.

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