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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Dougherty - North America

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: Holiday

Social network impact for retailers

January 29, 2010

Social networking has become the most popular activity online and visits to the category represented 13% of all US Internet visits in December. As the social networking audience continues to grow, the category has become a major source of traffic... Continue reading...

Affluent shoppers increase during holidays

January 28, 2010

Last week, during our Holiday Recap webinar, we examined how the demographic profiles of the visitors to the Retail 500 shifted in 2009 as compared to the previous year. When looking at the household income of visitors during the peak... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 06:40 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Holiday | Retail | fashion

Searches aid offline purchases

December 16, 2009

Shoppers have plenty of gift buying left to do this season according to a survey released by the NRF which found that the average shopper had completed 46.7 percent of their holiday shopping by the second week of December, down... Continue reading...

Hot Products for 2009

December 10, 2009

Everyone is aware by now about the season’s hottest toy, Zhu Zhu Pets, especially after the brief scare regarding Mr. Squiggles toxicity (he has been fully exonerated). This year's other runaway hit and hard to find item is the Mindflex... Continue reading...

Online holiday shopping season underway

December 02, 2009

Holiday shopping is in full swing now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us… sort of. Overall, visits to the Retail 500 were down on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday as compared to last year. Visits declined... Continue reading...

Holiday shopping with social networks

December 01, 2009

Last week, our custom category of 155 Social Networking websites received just over 10% of all US Internet visits. With such a large audience, marketers have flocked to websites like Facebook and Twitter to reach out to consumers during the... Continue reading...

Zhu Zhu Pets are hottest holiday gift

November 30, 2009

One of the hottest products this year is the Zhu Zhu Pet, an electronic pet hamster that is selling out of retailers all over the country. Searches jumped for ‘zhu zhu’ related-terms last week as compared to the previous week:... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 06:37 PM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Holiday | Hot Products | Search Strategies

Thanksgiving and Black Friday Seasonal Traffic Patterns

November 24, 2009

When you start hearing about doorbuster sales and stores opening at 5 am, it can mean only one thing – Thanksgiving and Black Friday are almost upon us again! Retailers started to promote pre-Black Friday sales as early as late... Continue reading...

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Predictions

November 02, 2009

Holiday projections are out and many are predicting a gloomy holiday season for retailers. The NRF forecasts a 1% decline growth in total retail sales for the 2009 holiday season, totaling $437.6 billion. The online channel is poised to fare... Continue reading...

Resurgence of layaway programs continues

August 20, 2009

With many consumers remaining cautious with spending, retailers are turning to layaway programs again this holiday season to offer shoppers a payment plan to buy gifts. In 2008, layaway programs made a comeback as retailers hoped to encourage shoppers to... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 03:33 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Holiday | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Snuggie slays the Slanket online

January 28, 2009

An article about the success of the Snuggie in AdAge on Monday prompted me to compare the popularity of the two competing 'blankets with arms' - the Snuggie and the Slanket. I’m sure everyone has been plagued with the problem... Continue reading...

Circuit City to close all operations

January 19, 2009

On Friday, Circuit City announced that the company is closing 567 stores and will be laying off more than 30,000 workers. During the holiday season, despite being one the top visited websites among the Retail 500 on Thanksgiving (#5), Black... Continue reading...

Holiday Search Referral Growth

January 16, 2009

Search engines accounted for the largest share of upstream traffic to the Retail 500 ahead of cross-shopping on other retail websites and email during the holiday months of November and December. An integral part of every retailer’s marketing strategy; the... Continue reading...

The Season of Online Coupons

January 15, 2009

We all knew heading into the holiday season that consumers were going to be highly sensitive to price due to the economic conditions, paving the way for an increase in online deal seeking. Coupon websites experienced growth in visits throughout... Continue reading...

Retailers still keen on search

December 23, 2008

Search remains king for retailers during this holiday season, with referrals from search engines responsible for driving the largest share of visits to the Retail 500. Last week, 30% of the upstream traffic to the Retail 500 was from search... Continue reading...

Hot Products - Toys and Electronics Categories

December 19, 2008

The short holiday season is rapidly coming to an end, but shoppers have not given up on looking for the hot products online. The Wii Fit continues to dominate the fast moving search terms list, when comparing the top searches... Continue reading...

Free shipping searches abound

December 18, 2008

Yesterday I posted about the uptick in traffic and searches related to coupons during this holiday season, but I would be remiss not to give special attention to one of the most popular online promotions of all – free shipping.... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 07:05 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Holiday | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Coupon traffic and searches continue to grow

December 17, 2008

Amid the trying financial climate, consumers are still doing some holiday shopping, although in more moderation than last year. For the week ending Dec. 13, 2008, the market share of visits to the Retail 500 represented 4.28% of all internet... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 12:52 PM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Holiday | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Holiday comparison - Brick & mortar vs. online-only retailers

December 12, 2008

One popular topic that comes up each year during the holiday season is comparing the amount of traffic to the websites of brick & mortar retailers to the online-only players. In order to perform the analysis, we created 2 custom... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 07:22 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Holiday | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Race is on for hot holiday products

December 05, 2008

Every holiday season we comb through our search data to find the season’s most popular products. Some are recurring favorites – like Ugg boots (much to my chagrin) and the Wii, but to help mix up the wish lists some... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 06:41 PM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Holiday | Hot Products | Retail

Heather Dougherty

Director, Research at Hitwise.