Most of DailyTech's readers are familiar with Newegg. At some point since the company's inception in 2001, you've most likely bought a stick of memory, a USB flash drive, an LCD monitor, or maybe a wireless router from the online retailer. The company grew fast and furiously thanks to its competitive prices, fast shipping, and customer service and managed to rack up $1.9 billion USD in sales last year.

Given the financial times that we find ourselves in today, I wanted to talk with a representative from Newegg to get an idea of how the company fared during this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales periods. Luckily, Newegg Vice President of Merchandising and marketing Bernard Luthi was able to shed some light on the company’s holiday sales.

First of all, Newegg runs a very lean business. According to Luthi, Newegg has just 2,000 employees to cover its operations in the United States, Canada, and China. The low overhead allows Newegg to offer lower prices -- even when taking into account shipping cost -- than traditional retailers.

While many other traditional brick and mortar retailers are having trouble increasing or even maintaining last year's pace with sales growth, Newegg experienced a 193% increase in orders placed during Black Friday year-over-year and a 169% increase in sales year-over-year. While not as impressive as the gains during Black Friday, Newegg's Cyber Monday orders placed and sales numbers were also up in the double digits.

When asked what allowed Newegg to witness such growth, Luthi responded that "customers are more comfortable shopping online" in today's economic climate. Truth be told, not many tech-oriented people want to be bothered with battling soccer moms and long lines at the mall and this group has long sought refuge in online sales during the holidays. However, according to Luthi, more and more “regular” consumers are being drawn to online sites like Newegg to fulfill their shopping needs.

Speaking to those regular consumers, Newegg has over the past three years branched out to include more consumer electronics offerings into is online portfolio with everything ranging from game consoles to settop Blu-ray players to large flat-panel TVs. That business has been big for Newegg and Luthi says that his company will continue to expand its small and large appliances categories to cater to “regular” customers and not just its “hardcore” enthusiast base.

Luthi points out that some of its more non-traditional offerings – that is, compared to what regular Newegg shoppers are used to seeing -- as refrigerators, washers and dryers, and other large appliance play up on this effort to market to a broader audience.

But in the end, Luthi wanted to emphasize that Newegg counts on three pillars to ensure it success and continue its growth into the foreseeable future, 1) Offer a depth and breadth of product which are priced right, 2) Offer fast and reliable shipping to customers, and 3) Provide great customer service along with customer-generated product reviews to make the buying experience a pleasant one.

Newegg will also look to its operations in China and Canada to grow its base and add to its bottom line.

I’d like to thank Bernard Luthi for this time to chat with DailyTech and if you readers have any questions/concerns that you’d like to address to Newegg, feel free to add them to the comments section.