• by Paul Gough , November 25, 2003

Retail sites are starting to pop in the last month and a half of the year.

According to a study by Hitwise, traffic to retail Web sites rose 3.4 percent in the week ended Nov. 22. Five had big increases in traffic over the last week including CNET Shopper (up 278.38 percent), eBay Entertainment (up 191.67 percent), KB Toys (up 38.46 percent), HP Shopping (23.08 percent) and Martha Stewart (up 23.08 percent).

One fast-growing category is flowers and gifts, whose market share has risen 49.15 percent since September. It's at the highest level since Mother's Day, Hitwise said.

Hallmark.com is the overwhelming favorite of U.S. Internet users, with 25.19 percent of the market compared to ABC Distributing's 13.40 percent, 1-800-Flowers.com's 4.65 percent, DaySpring Cards' 3.43 percent and Red Envelope Gifts' 3.27 percent.

A few other assorted facts from Hitwise:

Average session time for the week ended Nov. 22 was 8 minutes and 26 seconds, 4 seconds less than a week ago.

More than 62.8 percent of the visitors to Flowers & Gifts Web sites are women, and 24.04 percent are ages 35 to 44. Twenty-three percent are over 55.

Sixty-eight percent accessed the flowers & gifts sites from home.

-- Paul J. Gough