Amazon.com has best-ever year in 2006

With Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) constantly winning and losing support for its approach to retailing, the world's largest online retailer has said that on the back of more than 4 million orders placed on a single day -- December 11 -- it has had its "best ever" sales month for December and for the year in its 12th holiday shopping season.

The web retailer also said that it shipped more than 99% of orders in time to meet holiday deadlines around the globe, with as many as 3.4 million units being shipped in a single day. Now, that is logistics control for you -- many brick and mortar retailers can't handle that load -- and they've been around quite a bit longer.

In a neat sales twist for the holidays, Amazon also said customers ordered enough orange-flavored Airborne cold-fighting supplements to supply every passenger on 192 Boeing 747 planes. Holy cow.

Will Amazon continue to trounce the physical world of retailing in the holiday season of 2007 and beyond? Why would anybody fight traffic, find parking and go to a crowded mall shop where they're sold out of what you want? A click is so much easier all around.