Amazon announced its best holiday season ever, as online customers worldwide ordered over 108 million items from the dot-com retailer in December. According to a company press release, customers not only ordered items in record numbers but also received their orders at record speeds. Amazon's trademark fulfillment system shipped materials on schedule about 99 percent of the time.

Hot holiday purchases for 2005 included a range of items, from electronic gadgets and games to DVDs and jewelry. The year's must-own gift items included Game Boy Advance SP, iPods, and the "Chronicles of Narnia" book series. The most expensive item purchased in Amazon.com's Jewelry & Watches store was a $94,000 pair of diamond earrings.

Amazon tracks orders with its famed "Delight-O-Meter, a computerized system that logs and measures ordering activity down to the second. According to the e-tailing gauge, buying reached a frenzied peak on Dec. 12, when consumers ordered more than 3.6 million items, or 41 items per second.