Results Of Holiday 2000 Online-Shopping Season

  • by January 5, 2001
Media Metrix today announced that 34.3 million unique visitors on average went to retail sites each week during the 2000 holiday shopping season (week ending November 26, 2000 through week ending December 24, 2000), up 30.3% compared to the 1999 holiday-shopping season and surpassing the Web's overall growth of 18.6% during the same period.

"While retail sites drew an unprecedented number of online shoppers this holiday season and even had an aggregate growth rate surpassing that of the overall Web, this year will be better remembered by the strong performance of many traditional offline brands like Walmart, Bestbuy, American Greetings and Staples," said Anne Rickert, measurement analyst, Media Metrix. "At the same time, this season was marked by the continued dominance of a few existing e-tailers, mainly Amazon."

Traffic to retail sites for the week following the holiday-shopping season (week ending Dec. 31, 2000) was down 15.2% compared to the holiday season average, but the Media Metrix Online Shopping Index - which aggregates Web visitors from both home and work to nearly 400 retail sites and 18 retail subcategories -- was still up 27.0% compared to the same week last year.

Media Metrix says Amazon.com is the number-one retail site over the five-week holiday season for the second year in a row, with a year-over-year increase in holiday-season traffic of 47.8%.

Walmart.com was the top gaining retail site for the 2000 holiday shopping season, with a year-over-year increase of 640.0% in holiday season traffic compared to the 1999 holiday season. The five-week traffic average to Walmart.com grew from 50,000 average daily unique visitors over the 1999 holiday shopping season to 370,000 over the 2000 holiday shopping season.

Six of the top ten gaining retail sites for the 2000 holiday shopping season were traditional offline brands - Walmart.com, Bestbuy.com, AmericanGreetings.com, Staples.com, Hallmark.com and Sears.com.

Books sites were the top retail subcategory for the 2000 holiday shopping season with a five-week average of 2.3 million average daily unique visitors, surpassing last year's leader, computer sites, which had a five-week average of 2.1 million average daily unique visitors for the 2000 holiday shopping season.

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