Amazon U.K. made its biggest sale on its record this year, with over 5.5 million goods ordered on Black Friday, a significant jump from the 4 million items purchased from the store on Black Friday 2013. This year's figures is equivalent to 64 items sold per second, a feat that broke the retailer's own record of 47 items sold per second on Cyber Monday last year, or 4.1 million items ordered.
"Ever since we introduced Black Friday to the UK in 2010, sales have increased year-on-year but this year really has surpassed all of our expectations," Xavier Garambois, vice president of EU retail at Amazon, told BBC. "The public's appetite for Black Friday has been bigger than ever, kicking off the Christmas shopping period in earnest and establishing Black Friday as a fixture on the UK Christmas shopping calendar."
But while Amazon U.K. was enjoying the surge in sales, Walmart in the U.S. has suffered a blow when more than 1,600 workers across the country went on a strike on the crucial day. According to the report by Beta Wired, workers have been walking out on the job since Wednesday, demanding for a wage hike of $15 per hour in addition to more stable full-time work.
Walmart, however, through its spokesperson Brooke Buchanan, reportedly downplayed the protests and said that the strikers comprise only a fraction of its total number of employees worldwide.
This isn't the first time that Walmart workers staged protests during Black Friday. The Organization United for Respect at Walmart has used this important shopping holiday in the past to air their demands. OUR Walmart is not a union, as Walmart is said to have a tough stance against unions, but the strike is backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Earlier, on Nov. 13, 23 people were reportedly arrested in relation to the sit-down protest staged at a Walmart store in Los Angeles, California.
