Commentary

Just an Online Minute... Summer Sales

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that summer sales and pre-season fall promotions drove Web surfers at home to brick-and-mortar e-tailers during the week ending July 21.

Traffic to Office Depot skyrocketed 120% to 456,000 Web surfers. More than 23% of the site's audience browsed and shopped for various products at the site, which offered a free shipping campaign. COMPUSA.com also featured sales and shipping promotions, increasing traffic by 58% to 224,000 Web surfers.

Apparel sites drew a large following led by Nordstrom, whose anniversary sale is currently taking place. Nordstrom.com drew 253,000 Web surfers, rising 53% in traffic from the previous week, while Old Navy surged 34% to 422,000 visitors. Rounding out the top five lists, Nike drew 189,000 visitors to its site, posting a 32% growth.

Elsewhere on the web, traffic to USDA sites jumped 64% to 258,000 unique visitors at home for the week ending July 21, 2002, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Concerned consumers flocked to the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service site to learn about a possible E. coli contamination of various beef products and to view a detailed list of recalled products.

Also, with the next Harry Potter installment slated to hit theatres on November 15th, fans logged on to watch the "Chamber of Secrets" trailer, featured on the Warner Brother's website. Anxious fans drove traffic at home to more than one million unique visitors, with kids ages 12 to 17 making up 41% of the audience. Traffic to the Warner Brother's site also jumped 66% at work to 595,000 unique visitors for the week ending July 21.

And last, but not least, traffic to the LEGO site spiked 56% at home for the week ending July 21, attracting 284,000 visitors as compared to 182,000 the week prior. The site's interactive games, adventure stories and building instructions engaged diehard LEGO fans, as surfers spent an average of 53 minutes on the site, ranking as one of the top stickiest brands for the week ending July 21.

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