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Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

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Product Category Winners for Holiday Shopping

October 24, 2007

Here at Hitwise, we track 21 sub-categories under the bracket of the online Shopping & Classifieds industry in Australia, with 17 dedicated to direct retail. Given the predictable rise in visits to Shopping & Classifieds that we see November - December each year, I thought it would be more interesting to drill down to the sub-category level to examine which products tend to benefit online during this period.

First let's zoom in on the actual weeks that visits to Shopping & Classifieds peaked during last year's holiday shopping season:

You'll see that visits really began to vamp up from mid-October. There was an early spike week ending 25 November 2006, which was actually the peak week for Shopping & Classifieds online in 2006 overall. Shoppers who left their Christmas shopping a bit later peaked in visits around week ending 16 December 2006, with a surge in traffic from procrastinators week ending 30 December 2006.

Now let's look at the product categories that significantly increased in market share from mid-October to the three time points. Note I've kept in sub-categories such as Auctions and Classifieds to keep a check on their effect.

Some interesting points from this table:

• Appliances & Electronics, Books, Department Stores, Flowers & Gifts, Grocery & Alcohol and Video & Games attract significant growth rates for all three time points.
• Music, House & Garden and Sports & Fitness attract last minute shoppers (as well as bargain-hunters for post-Christmas day discounts).
• Flowers & Gifts had the highest growth rate, with 55% w/ending 16/12/06.
• Grocery & Alcohol spiked by 38% w/ending 16/12/06, corresponding to the highest volume in searches for 'hampers' in 2006.

Predictions for Holiday Shopping 2007

• Visits to Department Stores will increase throughout December 2007, but will peak late in the month as users browse online but purchase instore just prior to Christmas day.
• Music, Video and Games will peak late December as users have the option of buying gift cards from online services such as iTunes, or bricks and mortar stores such as JBHI-FI.
• Books will remain a popular category throughout the whole holiday shopping period
• House & Garden websites are likely to become an important source of gift ideas this year, having maintained their momentum in 2007 since Christmas 2006.

One thing at least that this analysis has highlighted: while the holiday shopping period does seem to creep up on us earlier every year, there are still plenty of options online for those of us who leave their Christmas shopping to the last minute :)

Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 04:22 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Shopping and Classifieds