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Category Archives: Christmas

Sherlock sets new record for BBC iPlayer

January 06, 2012

As always over the festive season there was a feast of TV delights to keep us entertained when speaking to family members grew tiresome. With so much choice over the Christmas period we were expecting Video on Demand (VOD) to... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by James Murray at 08:05 AM | (0)
In Categories BBC | Christmas | TV | Video

12 Insights of Christmas

December 01, 2011

It’s December and as people crack open the first windows on their Advent calendars we thought we would make some predictions for Christmas 2011. In true festive fashion we’ve plumped for the 12 Insights of Christmas, and not a gold... Continue reading...

Retail recommendations for Christmas 2011

August 23, 2011

Last week we ran a retail webinar as a pre-Christmas planning session, talking about the top trends from last year’s seasonal peaks and what retailers could expect from Christmas 2011. For those of you that missed the session on Friday,... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by James Murray at 04:18 PM | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Shopping and Classifieds

Christmas 2010 retail summary – the biggest post-Christmas shopping season ever

January 11, 2011

With Christmas over and the New Year in full swing it’s time for us to reflect on Christmas 2010 and the key trends in retail this year. The two biggest factors which affected online retail this Christmas were the December... Continue reading...

27 December second busiest day of the year in online retail

December 30, 2010

Over the last few days the UK Internet population have been prolific online, in one of the busiest post-Christmas periods ever. Boxing Day was the busiest day of the year for online retailers again this year, but the sales have... Continue reading...

Boxing Day the busiest day of the year for online retailers in 2010

December 27, 2010

Repeating the pattern that we have seen over the last few years, Boxing Day was again the busiest day of the year for online retailers during 2010. Yesterday (December 26th) UK Internet visits to online retail websites were 12% higher... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:25 AM | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Facebook more popular than Google on Christmas Day

December 26, 2010

As we predicted last week, for the first ever time Facebook received more UK Internet visits that Google UK on Christmas Day. As the chart below illustrates, on Christmas Day (December 25th) facebook.com accounted for 10.50% of all UK Internet... Continue reading...

Christmas Day 2010 was the busiest ever for multichannel retailers

December 26, 2010

UK Internet visits to retail websites increased by 32% between Christmas Eve (December 24th) and Christmas Day (December 25th). With IMRG reporting that 4.8m British consumers spent £153m online yesterday, the real winners were the multichannel retailers. As the table... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:03 AM | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Christmas 2.0 – a time for sharing (on Facebook at least)

December 23, 2010

Social networking has become an integral part of our lives and this Christmas more people will be sharing messages of good will with each other than ever before. As we get closer to Christmas Day visits to social networking sites... Continue reading...

2010 Online: the year in review

December 21, 2010

I can scarcely believe that a whole year has passed since I was sitting here writing the 2009 review, but 12 months to the day here we are, and it’s been another fascinating year in the digital world. Once again... Continue reading...

Snow dictates search behaviour to news, travel and retail sites

December 20, 2010

Online search behaviour was dictated this weekend by the snow. With the flakes falling thick and fast on Saturday there were huge spikes in traffic to news, weather, travel and social networking sites. With reports of up to five inches... Continue reading...

Amazon.com and fashion brands buck trend to increase traffic post Cyber Sunday

December 14, 2010

Despite last Sunday (5 December) being the busiest pre-Christmas day of the year for online retailers, some of the top retail brands actually received more visits from UK Internet users this Sunday (12 December) than the famous “Cyber Sunday”. After... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 02:28 PM | (0)
In Categories Branding | Christmas | Fashion | Shopping and Classifieds

Digital Death provides boon of Life for kids charity

December 08, 2010

Running an effective social media campaign is no easy task for any company, but for a charity with limited marketing resources that challenge is especially difficult. Perhaps the greatest success to date of an excellent charitable social media campaign was... Continue reading...

When is Cyber Monday?

December 01, 2010

Cyber Monday is an American term that people have tried to import to the UK, but its British definition remains vague. In the US it refers to the Monday following Black Friday, which itself is the day after Thanksgiving and... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 09:03 AM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Goa and Marrakech fastest moving winter sun destinations this quarter

November 30, 2010

With snow up and down the country it’s little wonder that Brits are thinking of warmer climes and wanting to get away for winter sun holidays. One of the insights to come out of our latest quarterly travel report is... Continue reading...

Alcohol Vendor traffic up 50% as Party season gets started

November 26, 2010

As December approaches with alarming rapidity the start of the party season will be swinging into action quicker than you can say “Secret Santa”. With office Christmas parties and large family gatherings on the way online searches will inevitably turn... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 01:28 PM | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Food | Search

Build a Bear more popular than Buzz Lightyear for toy searches

October 08, 2010

As the first week of October draws to a close it still seems extraordinarily early to think about buying Christmas presents. Despite my best intentions to be organised and to avoid the manic Christmas Eve dash, you can be fairly... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:39 AM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Toys

Experian and Hitwise at ad:tech: What will be the hot products this Christmas?

September 21, 2010

If you’re visiting ad:tech in London over the next couple of days, be sure to pop over to the Experian stand (270a) and say hello to us and our Experian colleagues. At 10:30 on Wednesday I’ll be taking the stage... Continue reading...

New Amazon Kindle searches spike to challenge iPad mini

September 02, 2010

September has only just begun and already people are talking about Christmas. Planning committees are being assembled to organise the office Christmas Party, high street retailers are bringing out decorations and online gossip has turned to the hottest gifts for... Continue reading...

Christmas Dinner – Homemade cheesecakes in; roast potatoes out

January 29, 2010

Guest blog by Jonny Steel, Marketing Insights Manager, mySupermarket.co.uk With Christmas now behind us, it’s time to look back at how our eating habits changed during one of the most financially challenging festive seasons for years. mySupermarket.co.uk, the grocery shopping... Continue reading...

The profile of online shoppers becomes more affluent over the Christmas period

January 19, 2010

One of the things we discovered when helping to develop the new Experian Mosaic UK 2009 profiles was that the typical online shopper tends to come from a middle or lower middle income group. However, over the Christmas period, the... Continue reading...

Beautiful People experiences fifty-fold increase in traffic following "fatties" announcement

January 05, 2010

The dating and social networking website Beautifulpeople.com which describes itself as “an exclusively beautiful community”, stirred up a bit of controversy yesterday when it announced the axing some 5,000 members following complaints that they had gained weight. "As a business,... Continue reading...

Last minute surge in online retail traffic before VAT increase

January 04, 2010

The UK VAT rate returned to 17.5% on January 1st and, as a result, UK Internet searches related to the change also increased. As the chart below illustrates, searches for our “VAT Increase” portfolio (which includes terms such as ‘vat... Continue reading...

Shop opening times searches up 11% this Christmas

December 30, 2009

Just after Easter we wrote a blog about the popularity of searches for shop opening times / hours. That analysis showed that searches for retailer opening times spiked during the May and August bank holidays, over Easter, and at Christmas... Continue reading...

Post-Christmas retail round up: online and offline traffic spikes on Boxing Day

December 29, 2009

As we’ve pointed out for the last couple of years, the post-Christmas period has become increasingly important for online retailers – and this year is proving no exception. Boxing Day (December 26th) was again the busiest day for online retailers... Continue reading...

BBC Radio 1 website has its busiest ever day thanks to RATM vs. X Factor chart battle

December 21, 2009

Yesterday (20/12/09) was the busiest ever day for the BBC Radio 1 website as listeners logged on to discover that Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’ had beaten X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s ‘The Climb’ to the Christmas... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 03:35 PM | (0)
In Categories BBC | Christmas | Music

2009 online: the year in review

December 21, 2009

The end of the year presents and excellent opportunity for reflection, and also for lists. Combining the two, I’ve decided to reflect on the last year of online activity in the UK by providing a list of our most popular... Continue reading...

Online Christmas shopping: top towns

December 17, 2009

The last four weeks have been the busiest of the year for online retailers, and this presents a good opportunity showcase our new UK Postal Areas data. This allows us to segment website and category visits by UK Postal Area... Continue reading...

Apple iPhone and iPod Touch the most searched for products this Christmas

December 15, 2009

Visits to consumer electronics websites increased by 16.5% between October 2009 and November 2009 as the gift buying season started in earnest. This was the largest month-on-month increase in UK Internet traffic to consumer electronics websites this year. Searches for... Continue reading...

Will Rage Against the Machine beat X Factor winner Joe McElderry to the Christmas number one spot?

December 14, 2009

Following Richard Seymour’s successful prediction a couple of weeks ago that Joe McElderry would win the X Factor, we though it would be interesting to see if our data could help answer another pressing question: could the Internet campaign to... Continue reading...

Cyber Monday: pre-Christmas online retail peak moves a week closer to Christmas

December 10, 2009

‘Cyber Monday’ (December 7th) and Sunday December 6th were the joint busiest days for online retailers so far this year. This means that the pre-Christmas peak in visits to online retailers has moved one week closer to Christmas this year... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:57 AM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Online only retailers fighting back against the high street

December 02, 2009

Over the last couple of years we’ve highlighted how the websites of high street retailers pick up more traffic than their online only competitors (e.g. Amazon UK, Play.com, ASOS, etc.) at Christmas time. As the chart below illustrates, the growing... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 04:59 PM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Pre-Christmas sales searches: let the game of Retail Chicken commence!

October 09, 2009

We’ve written a lot about the growth of voucher searches and the emergence of the ‘maximising consumer’ recently. Indeed, UK Internet searches for discount vouchers continue to increase: as of last week, searches for our portfolio of voucher-related searches were... Continue reading...

Microsoft Xbox 360 takes console top spot despite Sony PS3 Slim surge

October 02, 2009

Over the last couple of Christmases, Nintendo (both the Wii and DS) consoles have ruled the roost, but it looks as if this Christmas things will be quite different. The chart below illustrates searches for our portfolios of console-specific search... Continue reading...

Shop opening times searches: an SEO opportunity?

April 14, 2009

While perusing this week’s fast moving search terms (i.e. the search terms in each category that experienced the biggest increase in volume between last week and the week before), the list for our Shopping and Classifieds category caught my eye.... Continue reading...

Healthy New Year? Gym traffic up, diet searches down

January 05, 2009

Happy New Year! Many readers - including the lucky ones who got a Wii Fit for Christmas - will be hoping for a healthy new year, and they’re not alone. It’s the time for New Year’s Resolutions, and getting fit... Continue reading...

Social Xmas: Facebook’s busiest day ever, YouTube overtakes Hotmail, Social networks = 10% of UK Internet traffic

December 30, 2008

With all of the focus on the economic downturn and the troubles in the retail sector, it’s easy to forget the continued growth of social networking in the UK. Christmas is traditionally the busiest time of year for social networks,... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 08:00 AM | (5) | (2)
In Categories Christmas | Social networks | Video

UK online retail: Christmas round up

December 29, 2008

Given the economic conditions, people are watching Christmas retail numbers like hawks. Below are the key numbers for online shopping in the UK over the last few days. Sales searches up 3.2% Combined, UK Internet searches for the terms ‘sales’... Continue reading...

Traffic to E Cards websites up 11.8%

December 24, 2008

Yesterday I claimed that we’d written our final UK blog post before Christmas, but I thought this data was too interesting not to share! As the chart below illustrates, last week traffic to E Cards websites was up 11.8% on... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 08:30 AM | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Economy | Search

Last minute surge in online Christmas shopping

December 23, 2008

There was a last minute surge in UK Internet traffic to online retailers at the end of last week. Looking at UK Internet traffic to Shopping and Classifieds websites, here are the annual increases in visits vs. the comparable day... Continue reading...

Nintendo Wii and DS account for two-thirds of console searches

December 18, 2008

Nintendo’s Wii Console, which accounted for more than one in three games console searches in November, overtook Nintendo’s Wii Fit to become the UK’s most searched-for product in November. The company’s DS Lite was also the fastest growing console online,... Continue reading...

Retro toys dominate as searches for toys double in the run up to Christmas

December 18, 2008

UK Internet searches for toys doubled during November as the gift buying season began in earnest. Guess Who Extra, an updated electronic version of the classic 1980’s game, was the most searched-for game during November, accounting for one in every... Continue reading...

Pre-Christmas peaks in online retail traffic

December 16, 2008

In our retail webinar last week I noted that UK pre-Christmas Internet traffic to Shopping and Classified websites has already started to decline from its peak on Sunday November 30th. As the data in the chart below illustrates, the week... Continue reading...

High street retailers’ online demographics

December 11, 2008

High street retailers received 22% more UK Internet visits than online only retailers in November, and the gap is likely to widen during December. The chart below illustrates UK Internet visits to our two custom categories of high street and... Continue reading...

Netbooks account for 1 in every 7 computer searches

December 11, 2008

In the next instalment of Hitwise Client Intelligence Analyst Richard Seymour’s analysis of the consumer electronics market, Richard talks about another fast-growing consumer electronics area – Netbooks, the small to medium sized, light-weight, low-cost, energy-efficient laptops optimized for web usage.... Continue reading...

Just another Mega Monday?

December 10, 2008

Yesterday our friends at IMRG put out a press release stating that Mega Monday (i.e. last Monday, December 8th) online sales volumes were up 18% year on year. According to James Roper, CEO of IMRG, “Online sales are holding up... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:30 AM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Marks & Spencer and Debenhams sales

November 24, 2008

As many had predicted, the pre-Christmas sales and discount offers started in earnest last week, with Marks & Spencer and Debenhams amongst the high profile names offering reductions both on the high street and online. As you would expect, both... Continue reading...

Unemployment, redundancy and Christmas jobs

November 17, 2008

The economic situation has worsened since our post on ‘redundancy’ searches in June, and unfortunately this is having a negative impact on job security. Consequently UK Internet searches for ‘redundancy’ have increased by 83% since August, reaching their highest peak... Continue reading...

Nintendo Wii Fit most searched for product this Christmas

November 13, 2008

Wii Fit, Nintendo’s popular video game, is currently the most searched-for product by UK Internet shoppers in the run-up to Christmas. During October there were more UK Internet searches for Wii Fit than the Nintendo Wii, the most popular product... Continue reading...

Charity websites weather the credit crunch

October 15, 2008

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year the subject is poverty. Alan has already written an excellent post about the online charity landscape in Australia, so I thought that I would do the same for the UK. The most... Continue reading...

Vouchers, price comparison and cash-back

August 13, 2008

Last month we highlighted how the economic downturn has led to a growth in UK Internet traffic to websites in our Shopping and Classifieds - Rewards and Directories category. Historically this category has been dominated by price comparison sites such... Continue reading...

High street retailers winning online shopping battle

August 06, 2008

High street retailers are pulling ahead of their online only counterparts when it comes to online shopping in the UK. As the chart below illustrates, the internet properties of the 100 largest online high street retailers in the UK, such... Continue reading...

Retail price index and organic food

March 20, 2008

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has just announced the latest round of changes to the basket of goods it uses to calculate the UK retail price index (RPI). In addition to providing inflation figures, the make up of the... Continue reading...

How important were final Christmas order and delivery dates?

January 31, 2008

One of the biggest challenges that online retailers face is delivering goods, particularly during the busy Christmas period. Many consumers (myself included) have had their fingers burnt when ordering online, only to find that presents for loved ones turn up... Continue reading...

Sales searches trebled in 2007

January 03, 2008

The number of UK consumers searching for post-Christmas sales online more than trebled during the 2007 holiday period. There were 249% more UK internet searches for the term ‘sales’ for the week ending 29th December 2007 than for the comparable... Continue reading...

Boxing Day busiest online shopping day in the UK during 2007

December 28, 2007

Today we put out a press release announcing that Boxing Day (26th December) was the busiest day for online shopping in the UK over the holiday period, and therefore the whole of 2007. In order to compare this year to... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:00 AM | (0)
In Categories Christmas | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds

Top UK gift vouchers this Christmas

December 21, 2007

There a just a few shopping days left before Christmas and many people – most of them men - will be panicking about those last minute gifts. Vouchers are always a popular option and, as we pointed out earlier in... Continue reading...

Paypal vs. Google Checkout in the UK

December 19, 2007

Last week my colleague Heather Dougherty posted about the success of alternative payment providers in the US this Christmas. While Bill Me Later hasn’t yet launched in the UK, the other two major players - Google Checkout and Paypal -... Continue reading...

Lyrics, X-Factor and Christmas number one

December 11, 2007

Until recently, people used to complain that the traditional Christmas number one race had been hijacked by novelty records from the likes of Mr Blobby (1993) and Bob the Builder (2000). In fact, novelty records seem to make it about... Continue reading...

Nintendo Wii the most searched for product this Christmas, despite UK shortages

December 05, 2007

The Nintendo Wii was the most searched for product by UK Internet shoppers during November. There were thirteen times as many UK Internet searches for ‘nintendo wii’ sending traffic to the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category as there were for... Continue reading...

Christmas market search trends

December 05, 2007

The setting up of a Christmas market just around the corner from the Hitwise UK office made me realize just how popular these seasonal attractions have become. According to Wikipedia, the first Christmas market was held in Dresden in 1434,... Continue reading...

Discount retail vouchers

December 04, 2007

Last week Gap hit the headlines with its 30% off voucher, which some wag photoshopped and forwarded on as a 60% off voucher. Whatever the problems caused by the fake voucher, it seems likely that they were more than offset... Continue reading...

Digital photo frames more popular than cameras this Christmas

November 28, 2007

We’ve just completed our latest hot gadget list and, given the amount of coverage they have received, I wasn’t surprised to see that the Nintendo Wii is currently the most searched for console in the UK, nor that the iPhone... Continue reading...

Robin Goad

Research Director, Hitwise UK.

About Hitwise

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