Amazon breaks Black Friday and Cyber Monday records

Amazon posted its highest sales on record this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the company says. The e-commerce giant sold a total of 18 million toys and 13 million pieces of apparel on the two big shopping days. In total, shoppers bought over 180 million items on Amazon over the holiday weekend.

The big picture: Online shopping — on both e-commerce platforms and traditional retailers' sites — is taking an increasingly large share of the holiday shopping blitz. Amazon maintains the edge online with speedy and cheap shipping, but rivals Walmart and Target are making big investments in efficient shipping to catch up.