MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES SEND 25% MORE SHOPPING TRAFFIC TO
COMPARISON SHOPPING SITES THAN LAST YEAR
Black Friday Websites Surge, Creating New Internet Form of Bargain Hunting
NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2005— As Thanksgiving weekend approaches, online shoppers will have a multitude of options for finding the best price on holiday gifts, from comparison shopping sites which have become a staple for the online deal sleuth, to a new collection of websites that provide leaked information on upcoming Black Friday sales.
According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, Google and Yahoo! Search sent 25 percent more visits to the ten leading shopping comparison sites versus last year (week ending November 19, 2005 versus the week ending November 20, 2004).
The ten leading comparison shopping sites visited after Google.com, comprised 11.3 percent of total Shopping & Classifieds visits during the week ending November 19, 2005. In that same period, the ten leading comparison shopping sites visited after Yahoo! Search comprised 12.8 percent of its Shopping & Classifieds downstream visits.
"Comparison shopping sites are taking a bigger share of shopping-related searches on the major search engines leading up to the 2005 holiday shopping season," said Bill Tancer, general manager of research at Hitwise. "The increased user familiarity with these sites, combined with aggressive search marketing engines creates a funnel through which online shoppers are more likely to pass in their search for the best price. Competition for the online shopper's dollar will be very fierce this holiday season."
Of the 200 leading search terms sending visits to the top ten comparison shopping sites, 32 percent were for electronic items such as iPod and digital cameras (the four weeks ending November 19, 2005). House & Garden items comprised 20 percent of the 200 leading terms, with money-saving home heating items like "pellet stoves" and "wood stoves" topping the list.
Controversial Black Friday Websites Experience Explosive Growth
In recent weeks, a group of controversial websites that provide unreleased Black Friday holiday sales flyers saw massive increases in visits. For the week ending November 19, 2005, BF2005 (bfads.com), Blackfridayads.com and Gottadeal.com saw increases of 519 percent, 437 percent and 138 percent respectively.
BF2005.com which has received extensive media coverage over the last week has seen 9.5 percent of its traffic coming from the News & Media category for the week ending November 19, 2005. Major retailers are the most significant sites visited after BF2005 with Walmart.com 12.9 percent respectively of BF2005.com's downstream traffic during the same week.
"Black Friday advertisement sites are another example of the leveling of the playing field between consumers and retailers," said Tancer. "The combination of increased use of comparison shopping sites and sites like BF2005.com will lead to continued downward price pressure for online and offline retailers alike."
Leading Search Terms to Top Ten Comparison Shopping Sites (by Type)
Period - Four weeks ending November 19, 2005
Electronics
House & Garden
ipod
furniture
mp3 players
wood pellets
xbox 360
pellet stoves
ipod mini
electric fireplace
digital camera ratings
wood stoves
digital cameras
electric fireplaces
mp3 player
dishwashers
cell phones
bedding
ipod nano
garage doors
digital camera
electric blankets
Top 10 Comparison Shopping Sites by Market Share of Category
Period - Week ending November 19, 2005
Rank
Name
Domain
Market Share of Visits
1.
Shopping.com*
www.shopping.com
18.38%
2.
BizRate*
www.bizrate.com
17.35%
3.
Yahoo! Shopping
shopping.yahoo.com
14.39%
4.
Shopzilla*
www.shopzilla.com
13.60%
5.
Froogle
www.froogle.com
8.49%
6.
NexTag
www.nextag.com
7.83%
7.
PriceGrabber
www.pricegrabber.com
5.81%
8.
Epinions*
www.epinions.com
5.75%
9.
Calibex
www.calibex.com
4.63%
10.
MSN eShop
eshop.msn.com
3.76%
**Only includes visits to these stand-alone sites www.shopping.com and www.bizrate.com and not other Shopping.com or Bizrate owned properties.
Weekly Holiday Shopping Tracker:
Data period: week ending Nov. 19, 2005
U.S visits to retail websites accounted for 9.32 percent of all visits to the Internet.
Top growing retail categories last week were: Flowers and Gifts (up 13.4%); Ticketing (up 11.5%); Department Stores (up 10.5%); Rewards and Directories (up 9.7%) and Appliances and Electronics (up 8.3%).
Retail (9.32 percent) was the second most popular online category after Adult (16.8%). Retail is again ahead of Email sites (8.9 percent).
The leading product-related search terms driving traffic to retail Web sites were "ipod", "furniture", "auto parts", "lingerie", "tires", "toys", "mp3 players", "xbox 360", "flowers" and "ipod mini."
Hitwise U.S. Data
Top 15 Shopping & Classifieds Web Sites (ranked by % of total Visits)
Rank By Visits for Week Ending 11/19/05
Rank
Name
Domain
Market Share
% growth weekly (w/e 11/19/05 compared to w/e 11/12/05)
1.
eBay*
www.ebay.com
20.57%
-2.28%
2.
Amazon.com
www.amazon.com
2.93%
1.25%
3.
Walmart.com
www.walmart.com
1.64%
6.35%
4.
Craig's List
www.craigslist.org
1.19%
-4.07%
5.
Target
www.target.com
1.12%
3.82%
6.
Dell USA
www.dell.com
0.99%
-12.50%
7.
BestBuy.com
www.bestbuy.com
0.86%
6.81%
8.
NetFlix.com
www.netflix.com
0.71%
0.43%
9.
JC Penney
www.jcpenney.com
0.70%
5.59%
10.
Shopping.com**
www.shopping.com
0.63%
5.84%
11.
Overstock.com
www.overstock.com
0.62%
13.00%
12.
BizRate.com**
www.bizrate.com
0.60%
6.92%
13.
CircuitCity.com
www.circuitcity.com
0.58%
12.21%
14.
Sears.com
www.sears.com
0.57%
2.98%
15.
QVC
www.qvc.com
0.54%
13.25%
*Does not include stand-alone visits to other eBay sites ( eBay Motors, eBay Stores)
**Only includes visits to these stand-alone sites www.shopping.com and www.bizrate.com and not other Shopping.com or Bizrate owned properties.
Contact: For media inquiries or to schedule an analyst interview, please contact Lizzie Babarczy: press@hitwise.com (212) 380 2910.
About Hitwise:
Hitwise is the world's leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.
By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.
Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com. For up to date analysis on online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com.
