| Bricks and Mortar Retailers Winning the Online Battle |
In 2009, as unemployment rises the number one concern facing retailers will be shrinking consumer spend. The online channel will be more important than ever in winning business and competing against both Bricks and Mortar and Online Retailers. The 2008 Christmas retail season provides lessons to retailers looking to thrive in what will be a challenging year. By understanding the changes in consumer behaviour online, retailers can learn how to plan their campaigns more effectively.
The online shopping landscape has traditionally been dominated by Auctions websites, Rewards and Directories, and Online Retailers. Consumers have long sought out the best deals from comparison shopping websites and retailers who have been able to pass on cost-savings from operating online.
Christmas 2008 marked a significant shift towards Bricks and Mortar Retailers, as traditional brands began to leverage online for connecting directly with consumers. According to Hitwise, visits to Bricks and Mortar Retailers by Australian Internet users attracted year-on-year growth of 19.2% in December 2008.
There are several reasons for this movement: the 'flight to quality' or attractiveness of brands that consumers know and trust during an economic downturn; the drop in the Australian dollar; and the improved online marketing performance by some traditional brands. Online is being revisited as a key channel for brands to differentiate themselves against competitors.
Another major trend in 2008 was the heightened importance of post-Christmas sales, which are now occurring over a longer period. Boxing Day remained a key retail opportunity, attracting the most daily visits in 2008 by Australian Internet users. Bricks and Mortar Retailers particularly benefited from traffic on Boxing Day 2008, attracting year-on-year growth in visits of 29%.
Other major retail findings by Hitwise in Asia Pacific during Christmas last year included:
- Bricks and Mortar Retailers are winning the online battle: Visits to Bricks and Mortar Retailers by Australian Internet users attracted year-on-year growth of 19.2% in December 2008; in contrast to a decline in visits of 7.7% to Online Retailers.
- Appliances and Electronics is the fastest growing retail category: Appliances and Electronics websites enjoyed the strongest growth in the retail sector over Christmas, with Australian visits increasing by 27.2% amongst all websites comparing December 2007 and December 2008.
- Shoppers hunt for second-hand products during downturn: Australian visits to the Classifieds category increased 24.9% in December 2008 compared to December 2007.
- Top retail brands are increasing their share of the search pie: The top 100 retail brands in December 2008 in Australia grew in search volume by 27.9%, while in New Zealand and Singapore the top brands grew by 21.1% and 10.6% respectively.
- Electronic products are driving the highest rates of paid search: In a Hitwise portfolio of the top 100 product search terms driving traffic to the Shopping and Classifieds industry, electronics-related terms accounted for 63.6% of paid clicks (4 weeks ending 27 December 2008).
- Bricks and Mortar Retailers are attracting affluent shoppers online: Bricks and Mortar Retailers in Australia were 28% more likely than Online Retailers to attract visits from the Mosaic Lifestyle Group, 'Young Ambition'; Educated and high-earning young singles and sharers in the inner suburbs.
For more information download the new Hitwise Christmas Retail Review Report - Insights for 2009 Retail Planning, and visit the Hitwise Retail Data Center for the latest industry statistics and data.
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| Understand your Competitor’s Online Customer Acquisition and Retention Strategies |
By using the Hitwise New and Returning tool, you can identify how much 'new vs returning' traffic your competitor receives in a given time period, and importantly the website source for each type of traffic.
For example, if you are STA Travel Australia and one of your competitor's is Harvey World Travel Australia, by conducting a New and Returning analysis you would determine that 66% of Harvey World's traffic referrals in February 2009 consisted of new visitors.
You could also ascertain that Ticketek Australia was 52% more likely to send upstream traffic consisting of new visitors to the Harvey World Travel website.
To understand retention, you could also see that the Harvey World Travel website was 60% more likely to receive returning visitors from the Jetstar website. This insight is invaluable for gaining a competitive edge over your direct competitors.
If you would like to discuss these products further, please contact your Hitwise account manager or email Hitwise Customer Support.
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| Business and Finance - Employment and Training |
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The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 07/03/2009 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Business and Finance - Employment and Training' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'seek' representing 8.17% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Business and Finance - Employment and Training' industry.
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| 1. |
seek |
8.17% |
| 2. |
jobs |
1.99% |
| 3. |
job search |
1.54% |
| 4. |
career one |
1.11% |
| 5. |
careerone |
1.10% |
| 6. |
seek.com.au |
0.99% |
| 7. |
my career |
0.87% |
| 8. |
jobsearch |
0.86% |
| 9. |
seek.com |
0.82% |
| 10. |
mycareer |
0.67% |
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| New Mardi Gras - www.mardigras.org.au |
Economic woes failed to rain on the Mardi Gras parade and online too. The New Mardi Gras website (www.mardigras.org.au) jumped 441 places within a week to rank 252 in the Entertainment industry for the week ending 07/03/2009.
The official website for the Mardi Gras has steadily increased its market share in the Entertainment industry since the end of January 2009. It contains news and updates about the events, photographs of past events, information about the organisation and fundraising.
Top downstream websites receiving traffic from the New Mardi Gras website for the week ending 07/03/2009 were: Ticketek Australia (www.ticketek.com.au), SX News (sxnews.e-p.net.au), You Tube (www.youtube.com) and The Bobby Goldsmith Foundation (www.bgf.org.au).
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| Aviation - Commercial Airlines |
| This section includes any Commercial airlines websites, including aircraft charter companies, helicopter services operating a commercial venture. All data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 07/03/2009 » Ranks by 'Visits'. |
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| 84.4% |
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of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
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| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
54.77% |
| 2. |
Computers and Internet - Search Engines |
37.16% |
| 3. |
Travel |
23.37% |
| 4. |
Aviation |
16.23% |
| 5. |
Travel - Transport |
15.30% |
| 6. |
Aviation - Commercial Airlines |
14.60% |
| 7. |
Business and Finance |
6.39% |
| 8. |
Computers and Internet - Social Networking and Forums |
5.37% |
| 9. |
Computers and Internet - Portal Frontpages |
5.25% |
| 10. |
Computers and Internet - Email Services |
5.08% |
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| 1. |
Travel |
43.12% |
| 2. |
Aviation |
29.27% |
| 3. |
Computers and Internet |
25.90% |
| 4. |
Travel - Transport |
25.15% |
| 5. |
Aviation - Commercial Airlines |
23.57% |
| 6. |
Computers and Internet - Search Engines |
11.35% |
| 7. |
Business and Finance |
9.08% |
| 8. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
8.74% |
| 9. |
Travel - Agencies |
7.28% |
| 10. |
Shopping and Classifieds - Rewards and Directories |
5.69% |
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Book Launch - Click: What we do Online and why it matters
Written by Bill Tancer, the General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise, Click provides a behind-the-scenes view of the daily analysis the Hitwise Research team conducts into online behaviour. With a sample of over 25 million worldwide, insights can be gleaned on the sites that we collectively visit, what we search for and what that tells us about ourselves. Read more.
Search Marketing Expo - Sydney, 2-3 April 2009
Join Hitwise at the Search Marketing Expo and Conference - SMX Sydney, a world class event that offers more than 30 sessions dedicated to search marketing.
Featured Hitwise speakers at the event include: Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research who will be presenting the keynote on 'The Australian Searchscape’. Michael Walmsley, General Manager Asia Pacific, will also be delivering a presentation on ‘Keyword Research’.
Special Offer for Hitwise Newsletter subscribers, valid until 24th March 2009: All Access Pass $995.00 + GST (usually $1595 + GST).
To take advantage of this special offer vist SMX Register:
- Enter your email address and the promo code: hitwise-smxsyd
- Leave ‘options’ blank and press continue
- Then select ‘All Access Pass’ and continue through the registration process
For more information about SMX visit www.searchmarketingexpo.com.au.
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| Wicked – The Hottest Ticket in Town |
A look at the search term variations for 'tickets' over the last four weeks (ending 28/02/2009) illustrates that while larger purchases are being postponed, people seem unwilling to forego life's smaller pleasures like enjoying a night out at the theatre or watching their favourite footy team.
Proving that the show must go on, events-based searches dominate the list accounting for six out of the top ten variations on the word 'tickets'. Wicked was the number one event followed by AFL, Coldplay, Pink, Future Music and Billy Elliot. Now you know.
Visit the Hitwise To Go website for regular updates.
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