Comparison shopping traffic increases 56 percent

 

 

Hitwise reports that comparison shopping websites saw an increase in the online market share of visits last week compared to the same week in 2006.

Online traffic to a custom category of leading comparison shopping websites increased 56 percent last week compared to the smae period last year.

Yahoo! Shopping received the highest market share of visits within the category at 20 percent, with their market share increasing 44 percent from the same week last year. Smarter.com and Bizrate followed with 15 and 14 percent, respectively.

• The retailers benefiting the most from the top comparison shopping websites were Amazon, eBay, Target, Overstock.com, Wal-Mart, and JCPenney in the percentage of downstream traffic from those same sites for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007.


• Search engines were the main driver of traffic to the top comparison shopping websites with Google referring 20 percent of visits and Yahoo! Search referring 14 percent for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007.


• The leading product search terms driving traffic to the comparison shopping websites were laptop computers, Nintendo Wii, LCD TV, digital cameras, iPods, and Xbox360 for the four weeks ending Nov. 3, 2007.

Baby boomers are the main visitors of comparison shopping websites and consumer electronics continue to be popular amongst these comparison shoppers.

The share of traffic from online users aged 45+ increased 38 percent across the top comparison shopping sites. Shopzilla experienced the biggest increase in traffic among visitors aged 45+ with a 58 percent gain. NexTag saw a 48 percent increase in traffic while Yahoo! Shopping received a 46 percent increase for the same week.

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