Photo via Flickr's Ryan Tyler Smith
Photo via Flickr’s Ryan Tyler Smith

Amazon kicked off Black Friday deals a full 28 days early in an attempt to grab a larger share of holiday spending this year.

So far, the strategy appears to be working.

“This amount of acceleration is unusual this early in November and indicates that consumers are shopping earlier this year than past years,” said Scot Wingo, the CEO of Channel Advisor, who has access to sales information from thousands of retailers on Amazon, eBay and other third-party marketplaces.

Amazon’s sales increased during the third week of November with sales up 46.8 percent over last year, making it one of the largest year-over-year gains it has seen from Amazon since 2012, according to Channel Advisor.

The Seattle e-commerce giant rolled out its first special Black Friday discounts on Nov. 1, and last week announced a second round of promotions, which is clearly catching the attention of deal-seeking Americans.

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EBay also saw an increase, but nothing as dramatic, with sales up 12.4 percent during the third week of November, compared to the same period a year earlier.

Wingo cautioned that is unclear if consumers are shopping earlier this year in reaction to the Black Friday sales, or if their behavior has changed for other reasons.

One big reason why consumers may elect to shop earlier this year is because last year many purchases didn’t arrive on time for Christmas because of bad weather. It’s also not clear if purchases made earlier will affect the amount of shopping that will occur on Black Friday, or on Cyber Monday when Amazon and eBay typically see their biggest spike in sales as consumers shop online at work.

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Amazon’s Black Friday deals range from the most high-end electronics, like a 55-inch curved 4K Samsung TV for $1,298 to the most basic toys, like a special Lincoln Logs kit for $40. Most of the sales are being offered for limited times, with new deals being added every 10 minutes. By spreading out the offers, Amazon likely hopes to attract customers back to site frequently.

This holiday, ComScore is calling for holiday spending online to hit $61 billion in November and December, representing a 16 percent jump over the same period last year. Mobile purchases are predicted to account for $7.9 billion of that, growing 25 percent year over year.

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