Nintendo Wii Tops Holiday Product Searches

December 13, 2007; 08:26 AM

NEW YORK, NY – The Nintendo Wii continues to be the top searched for product this holiday season, Hitwise reported today. U.S. searches for the Wii have increased 274 percent1 this past week compared to the previous week. Uggs and Apple’s iPod products are also among the top product searches this season.

Top U.S. Product Search Terms Driving Traffic to Shopping and Classifieds Category by Product Type for week ending Dec. 8, 2007
Rank	Overall	Electronics	Toys	Luxury Items*
1	nintendo wii	Wii	Barbie	ugg boots
2	uggs	Digital picture frame	Build A Bear	uggs
3	ugg boots	Nintendo DS	American Girl	coach purses
4	ipod	Xbox 360	Legos	coach handbags
5	nintendo ds	Cell phones	Bratz	coach bags
6	wii console	Sony PSP	Airsoft Guns	coach purse
7	ugg	iPod	Leapster	true religion jeans
8	xbox 360	mp3 player	Thomas The Tank Engines	swarovski crystal
9	ipod nano	digital cameras	Hot Wheelz	dvf dresses
10	psp	guitar hero	Transformers	juicy couture jewelry
Note – data based on search terms sending traffic to the Shopping & Classifieds category for the one week period ending Dec. 8. 2007.
* - data based on custom category of 65 luxury retail websites.
Source: Hitwise

Other hot products searched for from the Electronics category include digital picture frames, the Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 and Sony PSP. Within the Toys and Hobbies category, the hot products searched for this past week are traditional favorites like Barbie, Build a Bear and Legos along with Transformers, Airsoft Guns and Hot Wheelz. The top searches from a custom category of 65 luxury retail websites included Uggs, Coach purses, Coach handbags and True Religion jeans.

"Searches for the limited supply of this season’s hottest gift, the Nintendo Wii, continue to grow as we approach the holidays, said Heather Dougherty, director of research, Hitwise. “In addition to the Wii and other video game consoles, consumers are seeking out devices for displaying and listening to digital media formats – digital photo frames and iPods, and other mp3 players. Special consoles designed for children are also popular this year, with increased searches for products like the Leapfrog Leapster TV system and the Radica IM Me Wireless Text Messaging device."

Recent Holiday Retail Trends:

• Search Engines are responsible for 29 percent of Retail website visits to the Hitwise Retail Index for the week ending December 8, 2007.

  • Google was the leading search engine sending visits to Retail Index websites, accounting for 17.49 percent of upstream visits for the week ending Dec. 8, 2007, followed by Yahoo! Search at 6.25 percent and MSN Search at 1.78 percent.

• U.S. Traffic to Alternative Payment websites (e.g. Google Checkout, Bill Me Later, etc.) is up 17 percent for the week ending Dec. 8, 2007 over the previous year.

• Traffic to Coupon websites is up 36 percent for the week ending Dec. 8, 2007 over the previous year.

• Searches on the term ‘gift cards’ is up 29 percent for the week ending Dec. 8, 2007 over the previous year.

• Traffic to Social Shopping websites is up 683 percent - visits to social shopping websites (where consumers shop in a social networking environment similar to MySpace or Facebook, examples include Kaboodle, ThisNext, and StyleHive) have increased 683 percent for the week ending December 8, 2007 over the previous year.

• The Comparison Shopping category was responsible for 10.39 percent of visits going to the Hitwise Retail Index and Email Services for 9.37 percent during the same time period.

Online Holiday Shopping Update:

• The Hitwise U.S. Retail 100 Index chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were down two percent for the week ending Dec. 8, 2007 versus last week (Dec. 1, 2007). U.S. traffic is up 10 percent compared to the same week last year (Dec. 9, 2006).

• Amazon.com was the most visited website within the Retail Index last week, receiving 12 percent of U.S. visits. Walmart.com received the second-most visits with eight percent. Amazon.com was the biggest gainer for the week, as their website traffic increased 11 percent compared to the previous week.

• The Nintendo Wii and Uggs were the most popular product search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the week ending Dec. 8, 2007. The terms “nintendo wii”, “uggs” and “ugg boots” were the top three product searches. Uggs made up three of the top 10 searches for this week making it one of the hot product searches so far this season.

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.