• April 1, 2005

Surprisingly, consumers this year were almost as likely to send an e-greeting on St. Patrick's Day as on Valentine's Day, Nielsen//NetRatings reported this week. Driven by St. Patrick's Day cheer and good spirits, e-greeting card sites jumped 63 percent week-over-week for the week ending March 20, Nielsen found.

That week the e-greeting card category drew over 5.1 million unique visitors, reaching more than 4.6 percent of active Netizons--not bad, considering that this year's Valentine's Day holiday week drew 6.2 percent of all active home Web users to e-greetings sites. Hallmark.com captured the top ranking for the fastest-growing site at home, as traffic to the site spiked 119 percent, from 530,000 to nearly 1.2 million unique visitors week-over-week.

"It's interesting that St. Paddy's Day would draw nearly the same level of user reach as Valentine's Day, the most popular holiday for greeting card sites, showing people's ease and enjoyment in sending e-cards," Heather Dougherty, senior retail analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, said in a statement.