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Comparison Shopping Traffic Increases 56 Percent

Baby Boomers Leading Demographic Driving Traffic to Shopping Websites; Overall Visits to Hitwise U.S. Retail 100 Index Increased 13 Percent from 2006

NEW YORK, NY - November 7, 2007 - Comparison shopping websites saw an increase in the online market share of visits last week compared to the same week in 2006, Hitwise reported today. Online traffic to a custom category of leading comparison shopping websites increased 56 percent for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 compared to Nov. 4, 2006.

Yahoo! Shopping received the highest market share of visits within the category at 20 percent, with their market share increasing 44 percent from the same week last year. Smarter.com and Bizrate followed with 15 and 14 percent, respectively.

· The retailers benefiting the most from the top comparison shopping websites were Amazon, eBay, Target, Overstock.com, Wal-Mart, and JCPenney in the percentage of downstream traffic from those same sites for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007.

· Search engines were the main driver of traffic to the top comparison shopping websites with Google referring 20 percent of visits and Yahoo! Search referring 14 percent for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007.

· The leading product search terms driving traffic to the comparison shopping websites were laptop computers, Nintendo Wii, LCD TV, digital cameras, iPods, and Xbox360 for the four weeks ending Nov. 3, 2007.

"As we enter the holiday shopping season, consumers are beginning to research potential gift purchases and compare prices earlier than last year especially with retailers beginning to roll out seasonal promotions," said Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise. "Baby boomers are the main visitors of comparison shopping websites and our search term data indicates that consumer electronics continue to be popular amongst these comparison shoppers."

The share of traffic from online users aged 45+ increased 38 percent across the top comparison shopping sites for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 compared to same week in 2006. Shopzilla experienced the biggest increase in traffic among visitors aged 45+ with a 58 percent gain for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 compared to the same week last year. NexTag saw a 48 percent increase in traffic while Yahoo! Shopping received a 46 percent increase for the same week.

Online Holiday Shopping Update:

· The Hitwise U.S. Retail 100 Index* chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were up 13 percent for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007 versus the same week last year (Nov. 4, 2006).

· Amazon.com remained the most visited website within the Index last week, receiving 11.34 percent of visits among the Retail 100 Index. Wal-Mart received the second-most visits with 6.34 percent. Wal-Mart was the biggest gainer, as their traffic increased 24 percent compared to the previous week.

· The more popular search terms during the 2006 holiday retail were again the top search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007. The product term "wii" was the most searched product, followed by the "uggs" and "xbox 360".

Hitwise U.S. Retail Index Top 20 Websites

Ranking By Market Share of Visits for Week Ending Nov. 3, 2007

Rank

Name

Domain

Market Share

Weekly Percent Change

1

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

11.34%

-1%

2

Walmart

www.walmart.com

6.41%

24%

3

Half.com

www.half.ebay.com

5.71%

-5%

4

Target

www.target.com

4.26%

-4%

5

Yahoo! Shopping

shopping.yahoo.com

3.21%

-6%

6

Smarter.com

www.smarter.com

2.41%

3%

7

BestBuy

www.bestbuy.com

2.37%

5%

8

BizRate

www.bizrate.com

2.34%

-12%

9

JC Penney

www.jcpenney.com

2.32%

9%

10

TOYS 'R' US - USA

www.toysrus.com

1.99%

21%

11

Overstock.com

www.overstock.com

1.97%

9%

12

Shopzilla

www.shopzilla.com

1.97%

2%

13

QVC.com

www.qvc.com

1.95%

2%

14

Dell USA

www.dell.com

1.85%

-8%

15

Circuit City

www.circuitcity.com

1.84%

2%

16

Sears.com

www.sears.com

1.65%

4%

17

Ticketmaster

www.ticketmaster.com

1.61%

3%

18

The Home Depot

www.homedepot.com

1.38%

-5%

19

Lowe's

www.lowes.com

1.30%

-3%

20

eBay Express

www.express.ebay.com

1.26%

-2%

*Note - The Hitwise Retail 100 Index does not include websites from the following categories - auctions, classifieds, computer manufacturers, relationship sales, reward point collecting and home entertainment - music download, DVD and video game rental. Data based on the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users.

Source: Hitwise

Top U.S. Search Terms Driving Traffic to Shopping & Classifieds Category

For the week ending November 3, 2007

Top Brand Searches

 

Top Product Searches

ebay

 

cell phones

craigslist

 

wii

walmart

 

uggs

ebay.com

 

xbox 360

target

 

ugg boots

amazon

 

digital cameras

best buy

 

nintendo wii

amazon.com

 

ipods

craigs list

 

ipod touch

craigslist.com

 

mp3 players

Source: Hitwise


About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

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