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Cupid Came Early for Valentines Day
by Jack Loechner, Monday, February 21, 2005 3 AM
Cupid Came Early for Valentines Day If you "remembered" last Monday, here's how you measured up. According to Hitwise, the market share of total U.S. Internet visits to flowers and
gifts sites was already 81 percent higher on Feb.10, 2005 versus the same day last year. Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise, said "Traffic to flowers and gifts sites exceeds last year's
levels as Valentine's Day ecommerce goes mainstream." The market share of several key categories of sites increased significantly leading up to Valentine's Day during the week ending Feb. 5,
2005:
- Flowers & Gifts up 107.5 percent versus the prior week
- Chocolate & Food sites up 46.4 percent
- Jewelry up 17.3 percent
- Lingerie up 7.7 percent
E-greetings typically peak on Valentine's Day, driven largely by procrastinators executing last-minute Valentine's outreach. Market share, though, to the e-greetings category was down 36.7 percent on
Feb. 10, 2005 versus the same day last year. Visitors to e-greeting sites are 61 percent more likely to be over 55 years of age. That age group makes up 25.7 percent of the visitors to the
e-greetings category, while they represent only 15.7 percent of the Internet population. E-greetings, flowers, and gift sites are visited primarily by females, who comprise 62 percent of visitors to
both categories.
Most Popular E-Greetings Sites and Those Visited by People over 55Top E-greeting siteShare of VisitsOver 55 Most popular% over 55 Visitors
1 Yahoo! Greetings 11.36% GoodTimes2.com
80.52% 2 123Greetings
8.65% Tara's Fun Pages 69.11%
3 Evite 8.51% JoyGreetings
64.60% 4 Hallmark.com
8.27% Angel Winks 62.96%
5 American Greetings 4.96% Alighthouse.com
61.72% 6 Birthday Alarm
4.16% The Worlds of Dobhran 59.13%
7 IM Greetings 3.76%
Spirit Is Up 58.82% 8
Blue Mountain 3.56% Castlemountains.com 58.73% 9 PassionUp.com
3.56% Sandbox Greetings 58.06%
10 00fun.com 2.12% AngelRays.com
57.92% You can find out
more here.