• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, February 21, 2005

Cupid Came Early for Valentines Day

If you "remembered" last Monday, here's how you measured up.

According to Hitwise, the market share of total U.S. Internet visits to flowers and gifts sites was already 81 percent higher on Feb.10, 2005 versus the same day last year. Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise, said "Traffic to flowers and gifts sites exceeds last year's levels as Valentine's Day ecommerce goes mainstream."

The market share of several key categories of sites increased significantly leading up to Valentine's Day during the week ending Feb. 5, 2005:

• Flowers & Gifts up 107.5 percent versus the prior week
• Chocolate & Food sites up 46.4 percent
• Jewelry up 17.3 percent
• Lingerie up 7.7 percent

E-greetings typically peak on Valentine's Day, driven largely by procrastinators executing last-minute Valentine's outreach. Market share, though, to the e-greetings category was down 36.7 percent on Feb. 10, 2005 versus the same day last year.

Visitors to e-greeting sites are 61 percent more likely to be over 55 years of age. That age group makes up 25.7 percent of the visitors to the e-greetings category, while they represent only 15.7 percent of the Internet population. E-greetings, flowers, and gift sites are visited primarily by females, who comprise 62 percent of visitors to both categories.

Most Popular E-Greetings Sites and Those Visited by People over 55

	Top E-greeting site	Share of Visits	Over 55 Most popular	% over 55 Visitors
1	Yahoo! Greetings	11.36%	GoodTimes2.com	80.52%
2	123Greetings	8.65%	Tara's Fun Pages	69.11%
3	Evite	8.51%	JoyGreetings	64.60%
4	Hallmark.com	8.27%	Angel Winks	62.96%
5	American Greetings	4.96%	Alighthouse.com	61.72%
6	Birthday Alarm	4.16%	The Worlds of Dobhran	59.13%
7	IM Greetings	3.76%	Spirit Is Up	58.82%
8	Blue Mountain	3.56%	Castlemountains.com	58.73%
9	PassionUp.com	3.56%	Sandbox Greetings	58.06%
10	00fun.com	2.12%	AngelRays.com	57.92%

You can find out more here.