• by OMMA Editors , January 26, 2011

Based on analysis of over 200 million unique consumers across the BlueKai Exchange, the BlueKai Pulse report provides a snapshot of popular shopping intent activity across auto, travel and retail verticals this past month.

December shows an increase in consumer purchase intent for luxury automobiles and a visible drop in shoppers in-market for Plasma TV's, a normal dip from November's Black Friday and Cyber Monday activities.

Jewelry & watches, DVDs & movies and dolls & teddy bears are some of the popular holiday products that made the top ten in-market retail list in this month's Pulse. Increased activities spurred by Black Friday sales in November resulted in a drop in purchase intent for Plasma TVs in December. Purchase intent for Sprint handheld devices increased by 58% in December, possibly triggered by Sprint's new contract pricing for the Android smartphone.

In this month's travel vertical, advanced bookings for air travel fell in December, coinciding with the end of the holiday travel season and the gap until the next public holiday in the upcoming months. Due to its close proximity to Lake Tahoe and other ski resorts, snow activity enthusiasts contributed to a 58% jump in search activity for hotels and lodgings in Reno, Nevada.

Luxury auto vehicles such as BMW 5-Series and 6-Series, Jaguar XK Series, Nissan GT-R and Hummer H2 topped the auto gainers vertical in December. Correspondingly, the top autos by model category are also led by luxury vehicles like the BMW 5-Series and 6-Series, Jaguar XK Series, Nissan GT-R, Hummer H2 and Maybach.

The BlueKai Pulse is an analysis of data from the BlueKai Exchange, the world's largest online auction marketplace that manages anonymous intent data on over 200 million unique consumers across top-tier e-commerce, online travel agency and auto comparison sites. Intent actions are defined as views of specific models or brand pages on automotive comparison Web sites, trip configurations for flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, or vacation packages on travel Web sites and activity on retail price comparison or e-commerce sites.

"Top 10" is defined by overall data volume which indicates the most popular categories in each vertical. "Gainers and Decliners" reflect the most significant month-to-month jumps or falls for specific intent actions, which is indicative of seasonal shopping behaviors.