New York, Dec 29 (TIWN) As online shopping boomed this year amid Covid-19, Amazon has said that this holiday season has been the best ever for independent businesses selling on the marketplace with worldwide sales growing over 50 per cent compared to the same time period last year.

Nearly all of third-party sellers are small and medium-sized businesses, the company said on Monday.   "We invested billions of dollars to help small- and medium-sized businesses continue to grow and to help keep employees safe and deliver products to customers - including more than $2.5 billion in bonus pay to front-line workers," Amazon said in a blog post.