• by July 1, 2003

Wedding season is in full swing and brides and grooms can expect to get what they asked for, according to an independent analysis conducted by Feedback Research, a division of The Gator Corporation.

The data revealed that 26% of Internet consumers buy wedding gifts online. Through an online survey and traffic analysis conducted on retailing sites that have popular online registries, such as Crate and Barrel, Target and JC Penney, between June 1 and June 17, Feedback Research gained valuable insights into how guests browse and buy wedding gifts online.

The survey, sent to a random sampling of Gator's 35 million users, asked questions ranging from how much users spend on wedding gifts to the number of online registries created by users for their own weddings.

Some highlights of Feedback Research's survey indicate:

47% of respondents researched a wedding gift online before buying;

62% of respondents buy gifts from gift registries; and

55% of respondents typically spend more than $50 on a wedding gift

Feedback Research also culled some interesting analytics regarding site traffic and gave some indicators into which retailers may be generating the most online revenue from shoppers this wedding season:

Daily traffic to sites peaked on Mondays and Tuesdays (116 and 115 index), and was lowest on the most popular day of the week to get married, Saturdays (75 index).

Target (65%) and Wal-mart (61%) topped the list as the most popular retailers where respondents indicated that they had purchased a wedding gift online and/or offline at the store.

CrateandBarrel.com and Target.com are effective in attracting shoppers to their sites as they experienced substantial cross traffic from other retailers.

Bed, Bath & Beyond (55%), Sears (55%), and JC Penney (54%) were also popular retailers among respondents for wedding gift purchases.

77% of people visiting gift registries only visited one registry, and 95% of people visit one to two registries.

Moreover, Feedback Research found that 65% of people who responded were planning a wedding in the next 12 months, and were registered at 2 or more registries, and of that group, a surprising 49% set up their registries online, while only an additional 2% actually created them at the store, at 51%.