Saturday, November 18, 2000
Online Holiday Shopping Starts With 12% Growth
Nielsen//NetRatings, the Internet audience measurement
service from Nielsen Media Research, ACNielsen eRatings
and NetRatings, Inc., today revealed that the holiday
shopping season has officially started the second week
in November, shifting from its flat growth in the first
week. The Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday E-Commerce Index,
which measures home and work Internet user visits to
representative e-commerce sites in eight product categories,
rose 12 percent in the past week ending November 12.
"The 12 percent rise in user visits is nearly identical
to the leap in the first week of holiday traffic for
1999, so it's clear the holiday season has firmly begun,
albeit one week delayed," said Sean Kaldor, vice
president of eCommerce at NetRatings.
Leading the growth were toys, games and apparel sites.
The toys and games category soared 47 percent in total
user visits this past week, after seeing a 12 percent
decline in visits the previous week. The apparel category
jumped 43 percent, adding to its five percent rise the
previous week. Consumer electronics rose 17 percent,
and virtual department stores, which include sites such
as Amazon, Target and Walmart, increased 12 percent.
"We forecasted a 270 percent increase in unique
visitors to online toy and game sites between August
and December 2000. This week's numbers confirm a solid
holiday start for this sector, which depends most heavily
upon a strong fourth quarter," said Kaldor. "Toys
and game sites are on the rise, with many toy companies
having started their initial holiday gift marketing campaigns,
including promotional inserts, catalog mailings, banner
campaigns, and TV advertisements."
"Apparel sites have been a sleeper hit thus far
in 2000, since many industry watchers questioned whether
clothing could be sold effectively online. Every apparel
e-tailer in our index showed significant growth over
the prior week, with Spiegel.com and VictoriasSecret.com
racing neck and neck for the 'fastest growing apparel
site' title within our index," he continued.
Dot Coms Seek Alternatives - Surfers Ignore Ads
According to the Miami Herald:
"One of the great promises of the Internet was
that it would be a terrific marketing tool. Advertisers
would know exactly how many people viewed each ad, and
whether they had been intrigued enough to click on it
in order to buy the item or sign up for the service.
All would be measurable, quantifiable, exact.
In a sense, it worked too well. Advertisers do know
how many people are clicking on their ads. It turns out
to be very few...
It's not only Web surfers who are losing interest. Internet
start-up companies, which have bought the bulk of online
ads, are increasingly selective about where they put
their dwindling dollars..."
Click
here for the full story.
