Amazon eBook Sales Explode In September

Amazon saw massive growth in its eBook sales in the month of September, with sales growing by $32 million (or 73 percent) over August’s sales.

The information comes from the pricing vendor One Click Retail that tracks pricing on millions of Amazon products daily.

“The gap between physical and digital books narrowed significantly in September,” One Click Retail wrote in a blog post.

While eBooks soared, fueled by digital sales of “The Girl on the Train: A Novel” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” sales of paper books dropped by more than half during the same month.

Shoe sales were second on Amazon’s marketplace for product growth in September, with sales rising by 15 percent, or $10 million. Athletic shoes alone accounted for $28 million in sales on Amazon in the month of September.

Toy sales also rose 15 percent, or $10 million, on Amazon for the month of September, fueled by sales of Lego products. Lego’s top three selling items — a model Porsche, a Millennium Falcon and a Mindstorms EV3 robot — accounted for more than $1 million in sales alone in September.

Pet care and health and personal care products also each rose by about 5 percent in September.

“Growth fluctuates greatly month over month and can be heavily skewed by promos and holiday shopping, so it’s important to take external factors into account when measuring the value of product groups,” One Click Retail wrote in its blog post. “That being said, it’s times like these, the periods between formal shopping seasons, that reveal most accurately what consumers really buy.”