Retail Category Traffic Soars as Holiday Shopping Season Gets Underway
Retailing dominated the top-gaining categories ranking for November as eager Americans went online in search of the holiday gifts and deals. Retail - Toys grew 24 percent to 31.3 million visitors during the month, led by Toysrus Sites with 15.4 million visitors (up 65 percent), Barbie with nearly 4 million visitors (up 15 percent), and KB Toys with 2.6 million visitors (up 119 percent).
Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals spurred growth at Retail - Department Stores, which soared 20 percent to 80 million visitors during November. Walmart.com captured the top position in the category with 44 million visitors, an increase of 50 percent from October. Target Corporation rose 26 percent to more than 39 million visitors, followed by JCPenney Sites with 18 million visitors (up 39 percent) and Sears.com with 16 million visitors (up 76 percent).
With hot electronic items like the Nintendo Wii, iPods and Garmin navigation systems appearing on holiday gift lists, the Retail - Consumer Electronics category increased 17 percent to 55.8 million visitors. BestBuy.com led the category with nearly 20 million visitors, a gain of 66 percent from the previous month. Circuit City Stores, Inc. followed in second with 15.4 million visitors (up 42 percent), while Walmart Electronics captured the #3 position, more than doubling to 9.5 million visitors.
Deal Hunting Fuels Traffic to Coupon Sites
Coupon sites ranked as the top-gaining category in November, surging 32 percent to 35.6 million visitors, as an uncertain economy and holiday deal searching led many Americans to seek coupons during the month. Eversave.com led the category with 8.6 million visitors (up 20 percent from the previous month). BlackFriday.info also saw strong gains, jumping nearly 1,500 percent to 5.5 million visitors in November, as eager shoppers planned their Black Friday purchases.
Top 50 Properties
Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in November with 147 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with nearly 144 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 123.5 million visitors. The holiday shopping season caused several retailers to gain in the ranking including, Amazon Sites (up one spot to #8 with 63.5 million visitors), Wal-Mart (up seven spots to #15 with 47.4 million visitors) and Target Corporation (up six spots to #18 with more than 39 million visitors).
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Platform-A led the November Ad Focus ranking reaching 91 percent of the 190.8 million Americans online. Yahoo! Network followed reaching 86 percent and Google Ad Network captured the third position reaching 84 percent of Americans online. Traffic Marketplace moved up two spots to the sixth position reaching 75 percent of online visitors, while MSN-Windows Live jumped four spots to #19 reaching 59 percent of Americans.
