Comparison Shopping Traffic Increases 56 Percent

November 8, 2007; 03:16 AM

NEW YORK, NY -- Comparison shopping websites saw an increase in the online market share of visits last week compared to the same week in 2006, Hitwise reported. Online traffic to a custom category of leading comparison shopping websites increased 56 percent for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 compared to Nov. 4, 2006.

Yahoo! Shopping received the highest market share of visits within the category at 20 percent, with their market share increasing 44 percent from the same week last year. Smarter.com and Bizrate followed with 15 and 14 percent, respectively.

• The retailers benefiting the most from the top comparison shopping websites were Amazon, eBay, Target, Overstock.com, Wal-Mart, and JCPenney in the percentage of downstream traffic from those same sites for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007.
  

• Search engines were the main driver of traffic to the top comparison shopping websites with Google referring 20 percent of visits and Yahoo! Search referring 14 percent for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007.
  

• The leading product search terms driving traffic to the comparison shopping websites were laptop computers, Nintendo Wii, LCD TV, digital cameras, iPods, and Xbox360 for the four weeks ending Nov. 3, 2007.
  

“As we enter the holiday shopping season, consumers are beginning to research potential gift purchases and compare prices earlier than last year especially with retailers beginning to roll out seasonal promotions,” said Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise. “Baby boomers are the main visitors of comparison shopping websites and our search term data indicates that consumer electronics continue to be popular amongst these comparison shoppers.”

The share of traffic from online users aged 45+ increased 38 percent across the top comparison shopping sites for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 compared to same week in 2006. Shopzilla experienced the biggest increase in traffic among visitors aged 45+ with a 58 percent gain for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 compared to the same week last year. NexTag saw a 48 percent increase in traffic while Yahoo! Shopping received a 46 percent increase for the same week.

Online Holiday Shopping Update:

• The Hitwise U.S. Retail 100 Index* chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were up 13 percent for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 versus the same week last year (Nov. 4, 2006).
• Amazon.com remained the most visited website within the Index last week, receiving 11.34 percent of visits among the Retail 100 Index. Wal-Mart received the second-most visits with 6.34 percent. Wal-Mart was the biggest gainer, as their traffic increased 24 percent compared to the previous week.
• The more popular search terms during the 2006 holiday retail were again the top search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007. The product term “wii” was the most searched product, followed by the “uggs” and “xbox 360”.