Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

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December 20, 2007

Trifle, Prawn Salad and Apricot Chicken: Gap Analysis

A common topic that comes up at pre-Christmas parties here is what exactly is traditional Aussie fare. While inspecting visits to the Shopping & Classifieds – Grocery & Alcohol industry, which surged by 20% comparing w/ending 6 October 07 and 15 December 07, I produced a search gap analysis table between the top two players in the industry, Coles and Woolworths Australia.

After filtering out brand terms, a clear difference between the websites observed was the number of food-related search terms that Coles is receiving – indicating content opportunities for Woolworths to increase their online share:

I then ran another gap analysis report between Coles and the Food and Beverage – Lifestyle and Reference industry, which brought up the names of a number of celebrity chefs, including Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Donna Hay. Producing affiliate content around chefs and culinary publications could be an opportunity for Coles to increase their search-driven traffic.

Sweet-toothed items that were amongst the top 30 terms included, 'christmas cookies', 'rum balls', 'rocky road recipe' and 'pavlova recipe'.

Year-on-year increase of 28% to Alcohol Websites

On a side note, it was also interesting to see that alcohol websites have enjoyed increasing traction amongst Internet users – with a 20-month high observed w/ending 15 December 2007.

While leading player, Dan Murphy's has been a driving force in this growth, increasing its year-on-year share amongst all sites by 54% w/ending 15 December 2007; there has been significant competition from Australian retailers in the wine industry, with fast-movers over the year including Wine Room, The Wine Society, 1st Choice, Australian Wine Selectors, Australian Wine and The Wine Liquidation Centre. Despite a dry climate, consumer demand for wine is high.

Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 04:59 PM
Posted to Shopping and Classifieds