Nielsen//NetRatings reports that surfers are turning to the Web to fulfill their back to school shopping needs, with some online retailers experiencing triple-digit growth during the week ending
August 3.
As the fastest growing online retailer for the week, traffic to Smartbargains.com skyrocketed 209% to more than one million unique visitors, as compared to 337,000 the previous week.
Apparel retailer Old Navy jumped 109% with 614,000 unique visitors, while multi-category retailer Buy.com jumped 83% with 1.2 million unique visitors, partly driven by strong growth to Buy.com's "Back
to School Superstore." Traffic to ABC Distributing Inc. jumped 83% to 346,000 unique visitors. Rounding out the top five fastest growing sites, shopping aggregator iWon Shopping jumped 61% to 290,000
unique visitors.
"Retailers are gearing up for fall with summer clearance sales and back-to-school shopping promotions," said Abha Bhagat, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Even as
overall retail sales tick up, consumers continue to be value-driven and look for deals and discounts online."
California Lotto Fever Strikes Surfers Lotto fever infects the Web, spiking
traffic to Calottery.com 115% at home, for the week ending August 3rd, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. The site attracted 374,000 unique visitors, with 60% of visitors logging on to check the
winning numbers.
"Last Comic Standing" Drives Traffic to NBC.com The search for the funniest person in America drove traffic to NBC.com up 24% at home, for the week ending August 3rd.
Thirteen percent of the site's 610,000 unique visitors logged into voting related pages for "The Last Comic Standing."