As visits to online retail sites continue to accelerate into the 2005 holiday season, search continues to be a leading source for visits to Shopping & Classifieds sites. Search Engines and Directories contributed 17.9 percent of all visits to the Shopping & Classifieds category for the week ending December 3, 2005. Google led search engine referrals by providing 10.8 percent of visits to online retailers, while Yahoo! Search and MSN Search provided 4.1 percent and 0.8 percent respectively. For the week ending December 3, 2005, the largest category sending visits to Shopping & Classifieds sites was shopping sites themselves at 49.1 percent, indicating that online shoppers are visiting multiple retailers within an Internet session.

"Search referrals to shopping sites continue to grow as we enter the key holiday shopping weeks," said Bill Tancer General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise. "However, even with the impressive growth of search, the fact that almost 50 percent of visits to shopping sites originate from other shopping sites demonstrate that consumers continue to manually search and compare across several online retailers. Search engines and comparison shopping sites should consider this manual search behavior as proof of demand for better shopping and comparison search".

Barbie, American Girl and Build a Bear Remain Hot Toy Searches in 2005

Top product search terms driving traffic to the Shopping & Classifieds - Toys & Hobbies category for the four weeks ending December 3, 2005 were "barbie", "american girl" and "build a bear". When compared with top terms from 2004, new entrants to the top ten were "airsoft guns" and "jigsaw puzzles". Top search terms driving traffic to the Shopping & Classifieds - Appliances & Electronics category for the four weeks ending December 3, 2005 were dominated by variations of "ipod" and "xbox 360".

"As we've seen in previous years, top search terms for toys and electronics leading into the last weeks of the year are a great indicator of what will be on consumers' holiday shopping lists," said Bill Tancer. "Given the prevalence of search as a driver to online shopping sites, search term data is an invaluable tool for the online and offline retailer as to what they should be stocking this holiday season".

Leading Search Terms to Shopping & Classifieds – Toys & Hobbies Websites
Period - Four Weeks Ending December 4, 2004 versus Four Weeks Ending December 3, 2005

This category includes sites that sell toys, as well as goods that cater for general hobbies. It incorporates both online and offline vendors. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 12/10/2005 » Ranks by 'Visits'.

A Leading Comparison Shopping Site

A leading comparison shopping site initially used Hitwise data to benchmark their performance against the competition, and to set goals for growth. However, once realizing the full potential of the Hitwise suite of tools, they integrated Hitwise data into many other aspects of their daily business initiatives, specifically, as a sales and business development tool.

The Hitwise "Ranking" tool provided the client with access to thousands and thousands of potential clients, neatly categorized across 160 industries. "Ranking Alerts" and "Media Alerts" advised their sales staff on Internet market trends and website movements, as well as up-to-the-minute news on their prospects and clients. The Hitwise "Charting" and "Clickstream" tools assisted the sales staff in demonstrating their websites' potential as an online partner for any company using the Internet as a channel to market.

By providing this shopping comparison site with timely and accurate measurement tools, the client was able to:

• Uncover their unique position within their industry

• Identify and evaluate new prospects

• Use Hitwise data as an objective, third party validation of their work with clients or pitch new business