Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK

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November 15, 2005

Shopping Comparison Sites in the Lead Up to Christmas

Shopping comparison sites can be an important source of visits to retailers, particularly in the lead up to Christmas. Shopping comparison sites have already started to experience a seasonal lift in visits, with a 7% increase last week. To help retailers evaluate shopping comparison sites, I put together some analysis on some of the more popular sites based on visits last week.

Below, I've included a ranking of the top 10 websites in the Hitwise Rewards and Directories category based on visits sent to Shopping & Classifieds websites. I've also included a table showing the most popular product and retail brand name search terms last week.

Kelkoo UK remains the most important shopping comparison site, measured by the visits it sends to retail websites. As the table below illustrates, Kelkoo UK accounts for 4 times more visits to retail websites than its closest competitor, Shopping.com UK.

Shopping.com UK was a new entrant in August 2004 and has enjoyed tremendous gains. The volume of visits the site sends to retailers was seven times higher the week ending 12 November 2005 compared with the week ending 13 November 2004. The site has also enjoyed gains in the share of visits it attracts, increasing share of visits 772% year-on-year. Shopping.com UK is set to be a major player at Christmas this year, given these significant gains.

Google’s comparison shopping offering, Froogle UK, has also enjoyed healthy growth since its launch last October. The site’s visits were buoyed in the summer of 2005 when a link was added from the highly trafficked Google UK search page. The share of upstream visits that Froogle UK sends to retailers has increased 8 times comparing the weeks ending 12th November 2005 and 13th October 2004. The site ranks 6th among shopping comparison sites based on upstream visits to retail websites.

While NexTag UK is the fourth largest comparison shopping site in terms of visits sent to retail websites, this is in part due to the large volume of visits sent to its US parent site, www.nextag.com.

Top 10 Rewards and Directories Sites Based on Upstream Visits to Shopping & Classifieds Websites, Week Ending 12 November 2005
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