Collectively, Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2012 “were the best ever for the Kindle family.” The company had more than doubled last year’s sales numbers, and while they don’t disclose any specific figures, it’s not too hard to believe. The $130 Kindle Fire deal was simply too good to pass up for a lot of people.

Amazon did release a couple of statistics and facts that might prove interesting for you. First of all, the top four spots on the worldwide Amazon best sellers list are Kindle ereaders and tablets. Also, Amazon claims the Kindle Fire HD to be the most gifted and most wished for product on Amazon since its launch.

Sadly, the Kindle Fire deal is over, and you’ll have to go back to paying at least $160 for the last-generation tablet, but that’s still a decent price. However, for just a bit more cash, you can pick up the newer Kindle Fire HD for only $200. That’s probably a better bet if you’re wanting to get the latest and greatest.

According to estimates from Adobe‘s Dig­i­tal Index, online shopping on November 26 (Cyber Monday) grew 17% from last year to hit $1.98 billion. Shopping on mobile devices made up 22% of all Cyber Monday sales according to Adobe’s estimates, and toys, sporting goods, and health and beauty products were the retail categories that showed the most growth.

Adobe also states that social networks were responsible for only 2% of referral traffic to retail websites, but both Facebook and Twitter combined to account for 77% of all referrals from social networks. While Cyber Monday deals might have seemed underwhelming to some, it seems a lot of people were able to spot great deals this year.

Overall, from November 1 to November 23, $13.7 billion has been spent online, which is a 16% increase from last year. This year’s Black Friday sales resulted in a 26% increase from last year’s Black Friday. Thanksgiving Day was also a busy time to buy online. Shoppers spent a total of $633 million for a 32% increase compared to last year’s Thanksgiving Day.

“So what do you think of the autumn sale?” one of my friends asked.

“Not impressed,” I replied. The look his face indicated that he agreed with me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good deal as much as the next gamer, and I am always willing to spill some serious cash during a Steam sale. I went into the autumn sale thinking that I was going to be buying up games left and right, but we’ve now entered the final day of the sale and so far I’ve purchased two games for a grand total of $17.48. I’m in fine standing with both my bank and my girlfriend as a result, but I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed.

There have been some good deals, to be sure – earlier in the sale, Skyrim took the stage as a featured deal, and right now Dishonored and Torchlight II, the latter of which being one of my 2012 favorites, are both 50% off. The problem, though, is that there’s going to be another Steam sale in less than a month. It’ll be big too, as Steam holiday sales always are. The autumn sale just pales in comparison to the blowout events that the holiday and summer sales have traditionally been, which leaves me wondering why we even need the autumn sale in the first place.

I understand why the autumn sale exists – everyone is going nuts over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so Valve holds a sale of its own to net some of the shoppers who have cash and are ready to spend it, provided the deals are good enough. With the autumn sale, however, it’s hard to get excited in the same way I’m excited for the holiday sale. In fact, it feels like the autumn sale is intentionally watered down in anticipation of the incoming holiday sale. It’s shorter than its summer and holiday siblings, there aren’t any publisher catalogs on offer, and the discounts don’t seem as deep. So, what’s the point when the holiday sale is knocking on the door?

Maybe this is all in my head. Maybe the problem is with me and not with the sale itself. With the holiday sale on the horizon, I’m hesitant to spend money during the autumn sale because there’s a feeling that they might be even cheaper in just a few short weeks. Even if I see a deal I know is good on a game I’ve been wanting to play, I question whether or not I should take advantage of it since I know (or at least assume) I’ll spend a lot of money during the holiday sale.

I can’t be the only one who feels that way, can I? I’d be interested to see how many people bite during the autumn sale in comparison to the summer and holiday sales, because I would imagine that the numbers for the autumn sale end up falling short. Valve – and other digitial distribution platforms for that matter – have something of a unique problem here. Most retailers don’t hold a holiday sale on the scale of Valve’s, only hosting massive sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Since PC gamers are used to blowout holiday sales and therefore expect them year after year, it makes pulling off an equally impressive Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale a bit trickier for those in the digital distribution arena.

What about you – has this been a great sale for you, or are you like me and feeling a little underwhelmed at the end of it all?

Tuesday after Cyber Monday saw $911 million spent online. On Wednesday online spending slumped to $868 million and Thursday online spending was $850 million. The week saw four different days with over $800 million in online sales. The entire week for Cyber Monday ending December 3 saw spending hit $5.163 billion, up 9% for the spending the same week of last year at $4.274 billion.

“Cyber Monday kicked off the most recent work week with an all-time record of more than $1 billion in e-commerce spending, representing a strong 16-percent growth rate versus year ago,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “While we saw three more days during the week with at least $800 million in spending, growth rates slowed to single-digit levels following several weeks at about 13 percent. We believe this softening is attributable to retailers’ heavy discounting and promotional activity during the earlier part of the holiday season [through Cyber Monday], which pulled some consumer demand forward, resulting in a mild hangover effect in the days immediately following Cyber Monday. We may see another week of this effect before late season discounts and buying by procrastinators gives the season a final spending surge.”

R3 Media Network

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I bet that lots of you are the same way, but many make exceptions for Cyber Monday since the deals can be so impressive. Cyber Monday was big for many sellers this year with the economy doing better and people looking to buy big time this year compared to slower sales seen by many online stores last year.

Buy.com has offered up some indications of how well Cyber Monday did for it this year and things were very good. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, the company had already recorded 48% higher sales than it had last year on Cyber Monday. Buy.com says that some of its most popular products for the day were the Nook 3G and Wi-Fi Reader that brought in “thousands of orders” on Cyber Monday alone.

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Apple’s main discounts from Friday have expired, but the company is offering savings on various accessories and peripherals in its US store today. That includes $20 off Beats by Dr. Dre Solo HD headphones and $30 off an M-Audio GarageBand keyboard. If you actually want Apple hardware you’ll need to head to resellers; MacConnection is offering up to $240 off MacBook Pro notebooks and up to $180 off the iMac.

Amazon is more ambitious, with Cyber Monday deals across most of its store categories. The Roku XD is 15-percent off, and there’s 35-percent off Sanyo’s VPC-GH4 1080p camcorder. If you’re after a standalone GPS unit then there are plenty to choose from, including 70-percent off Garmin’s nuvi 265, bringing it under $100. Amazon will also have various deals going live through the day, including a sub-$300 third-gen iPod touch.

Best Buy also has some serious discounts, with $400 off a 60-inch Mitsubishi 1080p DLP HDTV bringing it under $600. If you’d rather a massive LCD, there’s Sharp’s 60-inch AQUOS LC60E78UN with $400 off, bringing it to $1,299.99. Meanwhile there’s a half-price $99.99 Kodak ESP 7250 wireless all-in-one printer.

Walmart is running a whole Cyber Week special, with a $69 14-megapixel Kodak EasyShare C183 on offer, together with iPod nano bundles from $138 (Apple charge $149 for the nano alone). If you’d rather go with Microsoft, Walmart is offering a 32GB Zune HD with the Premium Car Pack thrown in for $188.

Newegg‘s Cyber Monday deals have been running as part of their Black Friday promotions, but there’s still $170 off a CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme 1077 Core i5 desktop. Oh, and T-Mobile will still give you a free second HTC HD7 if you buy one from them.

There are plenty of deals if you’re looking for a new case for your iPod, iPhone or other PMP/smartphone. XGear are offering 60-percent off iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G cases, along with iPod touch 4G cases, with coupon code CM2910.

If it’s laptops or desktops you’re after, Dealzon have scouted out a solid selection:

• 14.5″ HP Envy 14 Beats Core i7 for $1,049.99. [$150 off Black Friday]
• 14.1″ Lenovo ThinkPad T410 Core i7 for $970.50. [$129 off Black Friday].
• 12.1″ Lenovo ThinkPad X201 Core i7 Laptop for $1,031.80. [$144 off Black Friday].
• 15.6″ Dell XPS 15, Core i5, 6GB RAM for $799.99. [$50 off Black Friday].
• Dell Zino HD Mini Desktop w/ Blu-ray for $299.99. [$70 off Black Friday].
• 13.1″ Sony Z Series Core i5, 256GB SSD for $1,899.99. [$350 off last week].
• 10″ ASUS Eee PC 1001PX-EU17-BK Netbook for $199.99 at Newegg. [$42 off next lowest].

We’ll be keeping the shopping guide updated throughout the day as new deals pop up, so let us know if you’ve seen anything unmissable! Happy shopping…

That code will get you the recertified player for only $9.99. The Mvix Mini HD Media player supports UPnP Streaming, external storage playback, and MKV, RMVB, H.264, and HDMI. The code is a secret right now; I guess they want to tease us about the deal.

If what you really want, is the cool Ultio Pro 1080p media player with PVR, which one will be on sales as well for $69. It is also factory recertified. We all know that most of the gadgets returned as broken are just fine and the issues were user error so this is a great way to get some cool hardware at a big discount.

If you are giving some sort of new gadget to someone or are getting a new gadget, you will want to get some sort of film to protect the thing from scratches. Wrapsol makes some very nice films and has coverage for just about any gadget you can think of from the Galaxy Tab to the iPad and just about every smartphone in between.

If you order on Cyber Monday, November 29, before 11:50 p.m., Wrapsol will give you 30% off your order if you enter a special discount code at checkout. The discount code is “Cyber” and presumably is will start working as soon as the clock strikes midnight on the 29th.

Via Android Community

Today a company called Retail Decisions has released some information about overall sales during the two big shopping days for the retail industry as a whole. Sales of items on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined reached an estimated $5.3 billion in online sales.

That number represents an increase o 47% compared to the same period in 2008. The company also listed the most popular product purchased online during the shopping days. The top gadget was a TomTom GPS unit, Kodak digital camera was next, followed by the Nintendo Wii. The business hour for online shopping was from 1300 EST to 1400EST on Cyber Monday with $147 million spent in the hour.

Walmart.com has announced some good deals that are starting today and run until Friday. The electronics deals include a 12MP Kodak digital camera kit with free shipping for $89. Walmart.com is also offering a 10-inch Acer netbook bundle with a case and flash drive for $268. There are five different netbook colors to choose from.

Walmart is also offering some nice deals on game systems with a DSi bundle at $189 with a game and accessories. A Wii bundle with the console, two controllers, a game, and accessories will sell for $249. Shoppers wanting a PS3 can get the console, two games, a Blu-ray movie, and a Blu-ray remote for $369.