Growth in Online Shopping and Classifieds
Hitwise industry data reveal a substantial increase in visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites by Australian Internet users, with year on year growth of over 20% between May 2004 and May 2005. This indicates sustained consumer confidence in making personal transactions over the Internet, with an increasing amount of retail activity shifting online.
Australian retailers are however losing over a third of visitors offshore. During May 2005, 34.91% of traffic in Shopping and Classifieds went to global websites. This represents an opportunity loss on an attractive demographic - online shopping draws a youthful market with 28.73% of users between the ages of 25 and 34.
Pure players currently dominate the online shopping landscape. eBay Australia (www.ebay.com.au) is the heavy-weight in Shopping and Classifieds, with an overwhelming market share of 36.26% in May 2005. Amazon.com ranked third after eBay (www.ebay.com), accounting for 2.05% of traffic.
Hitwise Clickstream data demonstrate that Search Engine Marketing (SEM) remains a vital component of any online retail strategy. The Shopping and Classifieds category received an average of 22.52% of traffic from search engines and directories over the past 6 months. Google Australia (www.google.com.au) continued to be the leading search engine, accounting for 14.54% of upstream traffic to Shopping and Classifieds in May 2005.
Search Intelligence further indicates that brands dominate search activity - 7 out of the top 10 search terms to the Shopping and Classifieds - Apparel and Accessories category were brands compared to generic searches. The top three search terms were 'supre', 'sportsgirl and 'rebel sport' over a 12-week rolling period ending June 11, 2005.
Fast Mover: Join the Revolution
www.joinrevolution.com
Rank week ending June 11: 1765
Rank week ending June 18: 426
Positions jumped: 1339
A promotional website produced by Vodafone Australia (www.vodafone.com.au) for its prepaid mobile phone service Revolution Telecom (www.revtel.com.au) has soared up the Hitwise rankings as mobile phone users change service providers in order to claim a limited offer on phone credit and call rates. Available demographic data suggest an even ratio of female and male users, accounting for 49.97% and 50.03% of visitors respectively.
In a single week, the website leapt 297 places in the heavily contested 'Business & Finance' category as users descended on the website to redeem the offer. Based on a rolling 12 week average, 35.54% of users were aged between 25-34 years old.
On the week ending June 18, 22.38% of users were delivered to the website from the rewards directory Email Cash Australia (www.emailcash.com.au). Upon exiting the site, 12.39% of users researched the offer and the company by visiting Revolution Telecom (www.revtel.com.au). A further 6.2% chose to visit the government operated employment portal, Australian JobSearch (www.jobsearch.gov.au).
Category Spotlight: Sports - Snow Sports
This category encompasses all websites related to snow sports. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 25/06/2005 » Ranks by 'Visits'.
Case Study
How a baseball team used Hitwise data to understand the difference between site traffic, industry trends and the factors connecting them.
A baseball team's website manager was enthusiastic about online traffic levels when their season started. Visits to their website increased and it seemed that their new advertising campaign was paying off. Using Hitwise 'Charting' to compare their performance against other sites in their industry told another story however.
Although the baseball team did receive an increase of traffic with the launch of the new season, so did all other websites in that industry. By viewing the Hitwise 'Rankings' and 'Charting' tools the marketing manager was able to instantly understand that sports-fantasy websites were dominating the category and taking market share away from traditional sports team sites.
Hitwise 'Search Term' data also revealed that "sports fantasy" was the fourth most popular searched on term in the online baseball category.
Only with Hitwise's timely and comprehensive data was the marketing manager able to:
- Gain insights into the online baseball industry and the behavior and preferences of visitors.
- Quickly and affordably monitor the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
- Uncover new opportunities for content programming.
Media queries at Hitwise
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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, June 2005
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Hitwise Australia Newsletter - June 2005
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