eCommerce Had a Merry Christmas According to Hitwise, Shopping and Classifieds sites claimed an unprecedented 9.1 percent of total U.S. Internet visits between Nov. 1 and Dec. 25,
2004--a 25.6 percent increase versus the same period in 2003. The peak day for shopping and classifieds Web sites was Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day.
Bill Tancer, vice president of research for
Hitwise, said "While visits to Shopping & Classifieds sites reached new highs this year, it is interesting to note that 2004 holiday season daily traffic patterns achieved a near-perfect correlation
with last year's daily patterns. In looking forward to the next holiday season, this repeating
Another notable trend this year is that the market share of visits to large pure-play retailers
peaked over a range of days--specifically, visits to Dell, eBay, and Amazon peaked on Dec. 9, Nov. 10 and Dec. 11 respectively. Conversely, visits to the largest brick-and-mortar sites tended to peak
on Nov. 25 (Thanksgiving Day)--including Walmart, Best Buy, and Target--as consumers researched online before heading to stores on Black Friday.
An analysis of the fastest-moving sites on
Christmas Day 2004 (versus the prior day, Dec. 24, 2004) reveals three important trends:
- Visits to music sites skyrocketed, most likely caused by music downloading among recipients of iPods,
mp3 players, and online gift certificates. Specifically, iTunes jumped from 85th place in the Shopping & Classifieds category on Dec. 24 to 37th place on Dec. 25th, and MusicMatch jumped from 79th
place to 46th.
- Visits to movie tickets sites peaked on Christmas Day, confirming the popularity of films during the holiday season, as well as the practicality of online gift certificates as
a last-minute holiday gift. Fandango jumped from 33rd place on Dec. 24, 2004 in the Shopping & Classifieds category to 18th place on Dec. 25th, and MovieTickets.com jumped from 59th place to 28th.
- Visits to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers also skyrocketed on Christmas Day as visitors contemplated returns and researched post-Christmas sales.
Weekly Holiday Shopping Tracker: Up
19% Versus Last Year Data period: week ending Dec. 25, 2004 unless specified.
- U.S. visits to Shopping Web sites accounted for 8.72 percent of all visits to the Internet (an increase of 19.86
percent versus the same period a year ago (week ending Dec. 27, 2003).
- Top growing shopping categories last week were: Flowers & Gifts; Computers ; Music; Appliances & Electronics; and Video &
Games.
- The fastest-growing shopping categories versus last year (week ending Dec. 27, 2003) were: Classifieds; Grocery & Alcohol; Automotive; Sport & Fitness, and Auctions.
- Shopping
and Classifieds (8.72 percent) was the third most popular online category after Adult (17.44 percent) and Search Engines and Directories (14.25 percent).
Top Shopping Sub categories by market
share of U.S. Visits to Total Shopping Category. Week Ending 12/25/04
| Leading Retail
Categories | Market share of Visits |
| 1. | Auctions | 33.85% |
| 2. | Department Stores | 12.36% |
| 3. | Rewards and Directories | 13.69% |
| 4. | Computers | 8.56% |
| 5. | Appliances and Electronics | 6.67%
|
| 6. | Apparel and Accessories | 6.11% |
| 7. | Video and Games | 5.85% |
| 8. | Books | 5.73% |
| 9. | House and Garden | 3.93% |
| 10. | Automotive | 3.58% |
| 11. | Sport and Fitness | 3.07% |
| 12. | Music | 2.88% |
| 13. | Toys and Hobbies | 2.62% |
| 14. | Classifieds | 2.35% |
| 15. | Flowers and Gifts | 2.03% |
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