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Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

Analyst Weblog

Private Shopping Clubs dominate Apparel Sites in Australia

September 29, 2010

Apparel retailers in Australia have really embraced the online channel in the past few years, reflected by significant year on year growth of 49% in visits during August 2010. Other fast moving industries included; Appliances and Electronics (+26.7%), Computers (+18.2%), Rewards and Directories, which includes Comparison Shopping Sites (+13.1%), and House and Garden (+17.1%).

One interesting trend that has emerged from Christmas last year is the rise of online private shopping clubs – ozsale.com.au, brandsExclusive and buyinvite held the top 3 spots in the Apparel category between March 2010 and August 2010 (Alan first identified this trend here).

Private shopping clubs allow members to buy highly-discounted products from a range of brands at quick-fire sales events. They are an interesting e-commerce concept because we know that online communities and time-sensitive aggregators thrive on the Internet. Because they could work very well for a number of other retail categories, I looked at the downstream traffic from my Apparel Shopping Clubs custom category to gauge what other sectors might gain traction with consumers:

House and Garden, Health and Beauty and Sport and Fitness websites appear to get strong referrals from Apparel Shopping Clubs – which makes sense given they all have a skew in visits from female Internet users. There is potential opportunity for retailers or ‘retail aggregators’ to develop online private shopping clubs for dedicated age and lifestyle segments. It’s a space worth watching for all retail players.

This is my final post on the Hitwise Analyst Weblogs as I’ll be leaving Hitwise after 7+ years to embark on a PhD. It’s been a fun journey and a privilege to have contributed here - keep in touch.

Tweet Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 06:34 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Apparel and Accessories | Shopping and Classifieds

Searches for Property for Sale and Credit Cards attract strong growth in NZ

May 17, 2010

Following on from my post on Singapore financial search trends, we also looked at New Zealand queries to provide a reflection of economic conditions. We similarly found in NZ during Q1 2010 a rising trend for users to research a range of financial topics, including searching for properties to buy and rent, mortgages, credit cards, loans and savings.

* Property for sale searches (eg. ‘houses for sale’, ‘houses for sale auckland, ‘property for sale’) increased by 195.1% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009, and 53.4% up on Q42009.
* New Zealand locations that attracted significant year on year growth in property for sale searches included Auckland, Ashburton, Christchurch and Masterton, Rodney District and One Tree Hill.
* Searches for mortgages were down on last year by 7.3%, though have shown recovery with an 23.5% increase through Q1 since Q4 2009.

* Property for rent searches (eg. Variations of ‘houses for rent’, ‘holiday homes for rent’, ‘properties for rent’) increased by 130.5% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009 and 66.5% over the quarter.
*Trade Me homes for rent’ was the fastest moving rental search term year on year, highlighting the strength of the auction site outside of retail. Fast moving locations for rentals included, Auckland, Manurewa, Oamaru, as well as overseas interest in Melbourne.

*Searches for loans increased steadily by 48.8% year on year, and 31.5% over the quarter. Student loan queries dominated the top loan searches, accounting for 4 out of the top 10.

*Searches for credit cards increased by 150.1% over the year compared to Q12009.
* Driven by branded search, with ‘global plus credit card’, the most searched for credit card term, experiencing 26.9% more searches than last March. Other leading branded terms in order of popularity included, ‘kiwibank credit card’, ‘bnz credit cards’, ‘warehouse credit card’, ‘bnz credit card’, and ‘asb credit card’.
*Searches for ‘credit card balance transfer’, ‘low interest credit card’, ‘credit card fees’, were prominent generic searches as consumers tried to transfer and manage their debts.

*Searches for savings increased by 85.3% over the year, and increased by 47.5% over the quarter as consumers remained fiscally cautious.

Tweet Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 07:29 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Finance

Property searches attracting the highest growth amongst finance queries in Singapore

May 14, 2010

Recently we analysed the online financial behaviour of Singapore Internet users, and found an increase during the first quarter of 2010 in search queries around financial needs, including searching for properties to buy and to rent, mortgages, loans, savings and credit cards.

In particular we found strong growth in property searches for sale and rent in Singapore reflecting high property demand and price growth. Interest in the stock market, reflected by search behaviour, cooled in comparison to the property market.

Here were our financial search portfolios comparing Q1 of 2010 to the same time last year:

Source: Experian Hitwise

* Property for sale searches (eg. ‘properties for sale in singapore’, ‘house for sale in singapore’) increased by 407% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009, 183.1% up on Q42009.
* A peak in property for sale searches in early March 2010 reflects expected new price highs in 2010.
* Searches for mortgages were up by 164.8% year on year, and increased 14% over the quarter.
* Property for rent searches (eg. Variations of ‘houses for rent in singapore’, ‘property for rent in singapore’) increased by 428.2% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009 and 51.5% over the quarter.
* Searches for loans increased by 239.1% year on year, and increased 68.2% over the quarterly. ‘Personal loan’ and ‘housing loan’ were the two most popular search terms.

* Credit Card searches increased by 225% over the year compared to Q12009.
* Branded credit card search terms dominated the leading queries, including, ‘citibank credit card’, ‘uob credit card, ‘ocbc credit card’, ‘dbs credit card’ and ‘hsbc credit card’.
* Searches for credit card promotions were amongst the top queries, such as ‘uob credit card promotion’, as Singapore consumers shopped around for the best deals.

* Searches for savings increased by 267.3% over the year, and increased by 39.5% over the quarter, indicating that Singaporeans remained cautious overall about their finances.
* Stocks, Shares and Bonds related queries were up 40.7% year on year, but down 16.9% as the property market gained the interest of investors.

Tweet Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 01:42 PM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Finance

Singapore: Social Networks continue to trump Search Engines

April 29, 2010

Having recently re-located to KL, Malaysia, I thought it timely to provide an update on the nearest market we’re tracking here, Singapore. Unsurprisingly, Social Networking and Forums was the most popular online industry visited by Singapore Internet users in March 2010. What’s of interest is that this has consistently been the case since September 2007. Contrast that to Australia, where Social Networking and Forums overtook Search Engines for monthly visits only during March this year. Visits to Social Networking websites by Singaporeans is therefore a deeply embedded component of Internet usage and has been for a decent amount of time.

Singaporean Internet use is dominated overall by web-based activities (i.e. navigation, communication, and publishing) reflected by the prominence of Search Engines, Portal FrontPages, Email Services and Blogs. Stocks and Shares was the only ‘commercial’ sector amongst the top 10 industries. Multimedia, Games, Software and Reference sites were also amongst the top 10, highlighting a strong learning-orientation to web use.

While Social Networking and Forums has been dominant for some time, it is still growing at a strong rate, moving 2.74 percentage points, or 24% year on year (see below table). Travel sectors have also been growing strongly, including Maps (27%), Transport (13%) and Commercial Airlines (20%). The debut of Google Maps Singapore in November 2009 significantly contributed to growth in Travel – Maps visits, while in the Airlines sector, visits to Tiger Airways, Jetstar Airways and Air Asia all grew by 29.5%, 10.7% and 17% respectively.

Facebook’s phenomenal global growth has not left Singapore untouched, attracting the highest growth in visits amongst all websites. Twitter notably was amongst the top 10 fast moving websites, growing at a faster rate than its predecssor, Plurk. Amongst Singaporean websites, inSing.com, a lifestyle, entertainment, business and shopping channel, grew at the fastest rate, debuting in April 2009. Both Google Singapore and Bing notably gained strong traction.

While it’s illustrative to gain an overall sense of fast moving industries and websites, I’ll be spending more time over the coming months examining a range of commercial and lifestyle industries in more detail in Singapore and Hong Kong. Feel free to post any topic requests in the comments section.

Tweet Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 07:39 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Singapore