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Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

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House and Sports Shopping Sites Grow in Visits by Kiwis

October 17, 2008

Online Retailers in the New Zealand House & Garden and Sports & Fitness industries enjoyed substantial growth of 55.1% and 35.2% respectively against all websites in September 2008 compared to September 2007. Leading players in these sectors are well placed to take advantage of the fast approaching Christmas shopping period.

The top website in the online House & Garden industry was Mitre 10 New Zealand, which accounted for 9.35% market share of visits in September 2008. Mitre 10 New Zealand grew its share of the House & Garden industry by 61.7% year on year in September 2008.

Specialty websites around baby furnishings and wear featured prominently amongst the top 10 websites, including The Baby Factory, Baby Universe and Babycity.co.nz. Other leading House & Garden websites included Bunnings Warehouse New Zealand with 2.74% share of visits and Briscoes Homeware with 2.37% share.

In the Sports & Fitness industry, Torpedo7, a retailer for biking gear, dominated with 14.9% share of visits in September 2008, representing a 3-fold increase from the same time last year. Leading bricks and mortar brands also had a strong presence online with Rebel Sport New Zealand, Adidas and Nike featuring amongst the top 5 websites.

Vouchermate Takes Off Amidst Economic Downturn

As economic conditions tighten, consumers hit the web to maximise their discretionary spend. Vouchermate, a website where companies display downloadable vouchers for discounts on their goods and services, has risen quickly in online usage in New Zealand. The NZ website increase more than 4-fold between weeks ending 5 July 2008 and 11 October 2008, and ranked at fourth position in the Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds – Rewards & Directories category, week ending 11 October 2008. Search Terms driving traffic to VoucherMate were primarily brand-oriented, with 'voucher mate' accounting for 16.6% of clicks (search resulting in a visit) for the 24-weeks ending 11 October 2008 - highlighting the strength of the Vouchermate brand amongst New Zealand consumers.