Hitwise reports that U.S. traffic to Shopping & Classifieds websites (such as BestBuy.com, WalMart.com) continues to increase, accounting for almost six percent of all U.S. Internet visits for week
ending September 27th. Comparison shopping engines such as Shopping.com and Yahoo! Shopping have played an important role in driving this traffic increase, with the Hitwise Rewards & Directories
category experiencing a 16 percent increase in U.S. visits since January of this year. From the beginning of Q1, 2003 through the end of Q3, 2003 the amount of traffic that Rewards & Directories
websites referred to Shopping & Classifieds websites increased 23.3 percent, revealing U.S. Internet users' increasing propensity to comparison shop online before buying. The recently re-branded
Shopping.com Network of sites (formerly called the DealTime Network and including www.shopping.com and www.epinions.com as well as www.dealtime.com and www.pricetool.com) has emerged as the category
leader in referring traffic to Shopping & Classifieds sites. The Shopping.com network contributed more than 7 percent of all customer referrals from Rewards & Directories websites to Shopping &
Classifieds websites for the week ending September 27th. This is over 60 percent more than Yahoo! Shopping, the overall sector leader in terms of traffic, and nearly double the number of customer
referrals delivered by BizRate in the same period.