• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 18, 2016

The most in-demand product for those headed to college should surprise few. Among this generation, the hottest brand is Yeezy, the collaborative sneaker and clothing line between Adidas and rapper Kanye West.  

Hitwise, a division of Connexity that collects search data from more than 60 engines like Bing and Google, analyzed the visits from search engines to the Hitwise Retail 500, a collection of the top online shopping sites, which found the Yeezy sneaker grew more than 1,228 ranking points during the four weeks ending Aug. 13, 2016, when compared with the four weeks ending Aug. 15, 2015. 

The Hitwise Hot Product List measures the year-over-year change in ranking order of about 6,000 product searches and identifies those that have increased the most among product terms that perform well against each of the three audiences: parents of elementary school kids, parents of middle-school and high-school kids and college students+parents of college students.

Adidas also did well among the middle- and high-school kids where its Ultra Boost shoes landed among other best searched for and selling products among this category like Ghostbuster backpack, iPad Pro, Bento lunch box, and Emoji backpack.

Shoppers are in the midst of the back-to-school season, and the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that back-to-school 2016 spending will hit $75.8 billion, up from $68 billion spent last year.

Online shopping has seen a jump this year — 36.6% in 2015 vs. 46% in 2016. More than 80% of shoppers will take advantage of free shipping and more than 53% will buy online and pick up in-store, according to the NRF.

So how does a brand compete with a hot-ranking back-to-school brand? There is still an opportunity to make an impact. Think of it this way. If someone's looking for a direct competitor's product or service it makes sense to assume they might be looking for your products and services too.

There are some pros and cons to bidding on competing hot terms in paid search. For one thing, which search marketers know well, the more competitive the term the higher the price and not all are willing to invest in a higher cost per acquisition.

Overall, visits to the Hitwise Retail 500, a collection of the top online shopping sites, rose 2.6% during the four weeks ending Aug. 13, 2016 compared with the year-ago weeks. That means approximately 100 million more online shopping visits this back to school season so far, according to Hitwise.

The back-to-school hot product were analyzed based on the increase in rank position of nearly 6,000 unique search variations in aggregate sites of weekly tracked products on the Hitwise list.

Among the college set, Microsoft Surface Pro 4 rose more than 575 spots in the ranking landing at No. 152.  The movement reflects the "hotness" among the market segments and the "ranking" reflects where the product falls in the line of best loved products.

Kegerator also won among students heading to college, rising in the ranking 417 points. The Sound bar followed rising 198 points and Gaming Chair slightly more than 100.

The hottest products among elementary school kids were Lands' End lunch boxes, Pokémon backpacks, loft beds with desk, transformers, and Hush Puppies shoes.