Hitwise Intelligence - Asia Pacific

Private Shopping Clubs dominate Apparel Sites in Australia

2010-09-29T07:34:30Z

Apparel retailers in Australia have really embraced the online channel in the past few years, reflected by significant year on year growth of 49% in visits during August 2010. Other fast moving industries included; Appliances and Electronics (+26.7%), Computers (+18.2%), Rewards and Directories, which includes Comparison Shopping Sites (+13.1%), and House and Garden (+17.1%).

One interesting trend that has emerged from Christmas last year is the rise of online private shopping clubs – ozsale.com.au, brandsExclusive and buyinvite held the top 3 spots in the Apparel category between March 2010 and August 2010 (Alan first identified this trend here).

Private shopping clubs allow members to buy highly-discounted products from a range of brands at quick-fire sales events. They are an interesting e-commerce concept because we know that online communities and time-sensitive aggregators thrive on the Internet. Because they could work very well for a number of other retail categories, I looked at the downstream traffic from my Apparel Shopping Clubs custom category to gauge what other sectors might gain traction with consumers:

House and Garden, Health and Beauty and Sport and Fitness websites appear to get strong referrals from Apparel Shopping Clubs – which makes sense given they all have a skew in visits from female Internet users. There is potential opportunity for retailers or ‘retail aggregators’ to develop online private shopping clubs for dedicated age and lifestyle segments. It’s a space worth watching for all retail players.

This is my final post on the Hitwise Analyst Weblogs as I’ll be leaving Hitwise after 7+ years to embark on a PhD. It’s been a fun journey and a privilege to have contributed here - keep in touch.

Shop till you drop - The Competition just got hotter!

2010-03-31T04:58:17Z

Online trends are sometimes subtle and other times they are so obvious that they beckon further investigation. Over the past two months we have seen a strong trend appear in the Shopping and Classifieds – Apparel and Accessories industry, with the rise of the exclusive member shopping clubs.

These online clubs function differently from other member-based shopping websites as they offer limited time, members only private sales, offering up to 80% off RRP on selected items.

The first of the exclusive member shopping clubs to increase its online activity in the Experian Hitwise rankings was brandsExclusive . We also a reviewed their visitor acquisition strategy leading into Christmas in a recent blog ’Paths to Retail Success’.

Since week ending 13 February, 2010 Ozsale’s share of visits skyrocketed, propelling it to the number one position in the Apparel and Accessories (Shopping and Classifieds) category. The same week saw the rise of another exclusive members club, BuyInvite which now sits just behind brandsExclusive - making the top three websites in the Apparel and Accessories category all exclusive members shopping clubs.

The rankings within the industry have always been relatively volatile as can be seen by the rankings table above and the three new entrants have immediately challenged the traditional brands and existing online players.

The table below highlights the Mosaic Australia Lifestyle profile of the three exclusive member shopping clubs compared to the overall Apparel and Accessories industry

The over represented Mosaic Australia Groups highlight regional and country Australia’s desire to have access to leading brands at lower prices and to be receiving exclusive offerings. A short description of each of the over represented groups are;

· K - Community Disconnect - Older blue-collar workers and retirees in country and coastal locations
· H - Provincial Optimism - Anglo-Australian blue-collar families in provincial settlements
· I - Farming Stock - Rural landowners and workers in agricultural heartlands

Further analysis of the demographic profile of the websites indicates that:

- 62.7% are female (index of 105 against Apparel and Accessories – Shopping & Classifieds),
- 48.5% aged 25-44 (index 115) and 24.4% aged over 50 (index 101)
- More likely to live in Tasmania (index 144), South Australia (index 112) and Northern Territory (index 109)

One of the contributing factors to the tremendous growth of the exclusive member websites is the frequency of emails promoting new sales and offers, sometimes three or more times a week. This drives their visitation and has a corresponding impact on competitors such as EziBuy and Witchery, whose traffic hasn’t necessarily declined in real terms.

The importance of the email database development is highlighted in the dependence of the three websites upon email for their traffic. The chart below highlights the importance of email comparing the exclusive member shopping clubs and the overall Apparel and Accessories (Shopping and Classifieds) industry.

The test for the exclusive member shopping clubs will be the quality of their sale items and desirability of the brands, which promise up to 80% off retail prices, and if this enough to keep shoppers coming back time and time again.

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The Apple Tablet - iWonder!

2010-01-25T05:50:45Z

The computing industry and no doubt a few other industries, such as publishing, are holding their collective breath for the announcement of the impending release of the Apple iSlate / iPad / iTablet this coming Thursday morning (8am Australian East Coast time UTC/GMT +11 hours)

There is already substantial hype about what the product specs and name will be and competitors are already scrambling to announce devices similar to what they expect to see in Thursday’s announcement, not dissimilar to what was experienced at the time of the iPhone announcement on January 9, 2007.

Pre-announcement there is more interest around the upcoming Apple tablet device than there was at the time of the iPhone announcement. The leading three search terms relating to the upcoming announcement, (“apple tablet”, “apple islate”, and “islate apple”) accounted for 0.0044% of all searches in week ending 23 January 2010, over seven times greater than the share of searches generated by the top three search terms relating to the iPhone (“iphone”, “apple phone” and “apple iphone”) in week ending 6 January 2007.

So strong is the interest in the announcement, “apple tablet” is the most searched for product related search variation of Apple in week ending 23 January 2010, with almost twice the search volume of Apple iPhone.

In the top 1,000 search terms containing “Apple” there were 30 tablet device related search variations, and only one related term in the top 1,000 search terms contain “Mac”. Consumers clearly understand the product distinctions between the line up of desktop and laptop computers carrying the Mac branding or designation and the portable devices bearing the “I” prefix.

With no prior announcement of the name, the rumour mill has run wild with all sorts of guesses, the most popular being the itablet, islate and ipad. The following chart indicates the search volume around the top related search terms in the week ending 23 January 2010.

While these don’t indicate Apple’s preferred name, it does indicate the names that have grabbed the most attention, most likely driven by influential blogs and news and media websites.

The main beneficiaries of the leading term ‘apple tablet’ in the past week (week ending 23 January 2010) has been a mix of Technical / Computer, Blogs and News and Media websites, with the most obvious exclusion the local traditional newspaper websites.

Apple has been tight-lipped as usual about the new product release and the interest is building. Whether this interest will translate to another successful product launch and transform another industry vertical as the iPod did with Music will have to wait until closer to launch of the yet unnamed product. iWonder what it will be?

More last-minute Christmas shopping this year

2009-12-22T21:53:37Z

Visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites in Australia this year have been slower overall than in 2008. A key factor has been the fallout from the global financial crisis with consumers overall more cautious in their spending habits. As a result, we’ve noticed more last-minute shopping, with daily visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites prior to Christmas peaking later this year than in 2008:

·The peak day for Shopping and Classifieds in 2008 prior to Christmas day was 7 December 2008 (which was a Sunday), with 7.26% share of visits.

·In 2009, the day that has attracted the greatest share of visits for Shopping and Classifieds so far is 13 December 2009, also a Sunday, with 6.74% share of visits.

Another reason why visits to Shopping websites are occurring later in the season is the greater connection between online and offline shopping (See Heather Dougherty’s related post). We certainly have seen searches for ‘trading hours’ and ‘store location’ grow each Christmas period in Australia, demonstrating how shoppers use online to support their in-store purchases.

So in the 11th hour, which Bricks and Mortar Retailers are set to benefit from the last-minute shopping rush?

Apple is performing strongly, with the Apple Store and its Australian website accounting for 14.5% share of visits amongst Bricks and Mortar Retailers. It is also interesting to note the appearance of The Westfield Group amongst the top 10 websites, reinforcing our observations on the importance of online for promoting physical retail outlets.

This wraps up my retail posts for this year. You can download the full Experian Hitwise Christmas Retail series here. Wishing you all a happy festive season!

Comparison shopping sites can help influence new shoppers

2009-12-17T09:00:36Z

A few weeks ago I wrote about the opportunity for retailers to build brand credibility through strengthening online content around consumer product reviews. This is part of a wider theme of understanding both the short and long term influencing factors during the customer online buying cycle.

In this post, I want to take a step back and look at how we can help identify where the customer ‘starts’ their shopping research. To that end, I looked at the downstream clicks of the largest distributor of traffic to retail websites in Australia, i.e. Google Australia (more than 1 in 4 clicks during November 2009), and used our ‘new visitors’ filter to understand where new customers were going.

You can see that eBay Australia and Trading Post Online get the most ‘new’ traffic which is probably more a factor of their sheer online size. What’s notable is the prevalence of comparison shopping websites, namely Shopping.com AU, GetPrice, MyShopping.com.au, and Lasoo amongst the top 20 websites.

While having a strong online brand presence is important in attracting customers direct via search engines, strong partnerships with comparison shopping websites is also key in influencing customers during the early phase of the buying cycle.

Update: Note that the websites in the table are listed in order of 'new click volume'. The horizontal bars in the far right column allude to the 'new' vs. 'returning' visitor rate per website.

Credit card searches up as consumer confidence returns

2009-11-27T03:36:40Z

Credit card searches in Australia have picked up from a three year low in May 2009, and were up 24% comparing weeks ending 21 November 2009 and 2 May 2009. This is one indication that consumers may be adopting a less tentative attitude towards their personal debt, amidst reports that the consumer outlook for Christmas spending this year is positive.

The below figure charts search variations on ‘credit card’ and ‘term deposit’ trended over a three year period (I’ve excluded their plural forms for the sake of brevity).

Search variations on ‘term deposit’ reached their peak during the week ending 11 October 2008, as Australian banks actively promoted term deposits and encouraged spending restraint from consumers. Since then, search traffic around term deposits has retained its overall momentum, but is not growing at the same rate.

So now that there’s an indication that the tide may be changing, who’s helping to drive increased awareness of credit cards? The below figure shows the top variations on ‘credit card’, with branded terms accounting for 8 out of the top 10 searches. The leading term was ‘ignite credit card’, owned by Westpac, with 3.41% search volume during the 12 weeks ending 21 November 2009. The most popular branded search variation on 'credit cards' (plural) was 'anz credit cards' for the same time period.

For those tempted to put all their Christmas presents on credit this year, here’s some timely advice from finance commentator, Michael Pascoe.

Product reviews – content opportunities for retailers

2009-11-26T00:36:55Z

Retail players, like in any other industry, need to develop strong online content to attract high traffic volumes, and ultimately earn the trust of consumers through the integrity of information provided on websites.

Consumer product reviews are an excellent example of content that retailers can host on their own web properties. ‘Review’ search variations appear frequently for example in the traffic to the Shopping and Classifieds - Appliances and Electronics industry, as consumers seek advice from the source they are often most likely to trust: other consumers.

This type of comparison activity is increasing – a search portfolio of ‘review’ search variations sending traffic to Appliances and Electronics websites increased 5-fold during the 4 weeks ending 21 November 2009, compared to the same period last year. Many Appliances and Electronics retailers have caught on to this trend, with the average rate of paid search traffic accounting for 16.41%.

Mobile phone reviews dominated the top 20 clicks, with the term ‘nokia n97 review’ sending the most traffic to Appliances and Electronics websites. Leading non-branded terms included, ‘mobile phone reviews’, ‘laptop reviews’, ‘gps reviews’, ‘camera reviews’ and ‘digital camera reviews’.

Who’s receiving organic clicks on product reviews?

While PPC is obviously an important tactic in attracting customers, organic search results provide one proxy for the ‘usefulness’ of an online information source, and can be an important benchmark when reviewing which websites get the most traffic from product-related search terms.

It was no surprise to see that tech publications dominated the list of top websites to receive traffic from electronic related ‘review’ terms. CNET.com.au received the most organic traffic, with 13.28% of clicks. Comparison websites also featured prominently, with Product Review Australia receiving 3.46% of clicks.

JB Hi-Fi Australia Online Shop featured as the top bricks and mortar website to receive organic clicks from ‘review’ terms. It was also interesting to see the new Dick Smith Electronics - Customer Reviews website appear recently in our fast moving website listings, debuting at 5th position in the Shopping and Classifieds – Appliances and Electronics category, during the week ending 31 October 2009.

Blog Shops popular in Singapore

2009-11-19T05:57:47Z

Christmas online shopping in Singapore and Hong Kong has gained strength over the past few years, with visits to the Shopping and Classifieds industry reaching a 3-year high during the week ending 28 November 2008 in Singapore, and week ending 13 December 2008 in Hong Kong.

Earlier this week I provided an update on the leading product categories in the retail sector in Australia. There were some regional similarities in Singapore and Hong Kong, with Apparel and Accessories, Computers and Appliances and Electronics dominant verticals in all three markets.

· Apparel and Accessories was the largest retail category in Singapore, accounting for more than 1 in 5 visits to Shopping and Classifieds during the week ending 7 November 2009. Visits to the sector also grew by 34.7% year on year to week ending 7 November 2009.

· An interesting phenomenon in the Singapore Apparel and Accessories industry is the prevalence of blogging websites that offer retail. Examples of blogs amongst the top 10 Apparel and Accessories websites included, BonitoChico, Agneselle, Hollyhoque, Agnes's Deepest Thoughts and So She Say. This could be an indication that Singapore users increasingly prefer to do retail transactions through a blogging vehicle and if this is the case, presents a real challenge to Auctions and Classifieds players in Singapore. Slow year on year visit rates to Auctions and Classifieds websites supports this hypothesis. I’d be interested to hear from Singapore readers if this is backed up anecdotally.

· The Computers industry attracted the highest share amongst Shopping and Classifieds websites in Hong Kong, accounting for 1 in 10 visits during the week ending 7 November 2009. Apple Store accounted for 40% share of visits in the Computers category; behind Singapore in local penetration rate (45%) but ahead of Australia (15%) and New Zealand (4.93%).

· Video and Games attracted 136% growth in visits year on year in Hong Kong, primarily due to the dominance of SensAsian.com, a Malaysian entertainment retail portal. Fast moving categories also included Music and House and Garden. In Singapore, Apparel and Accessories, Computers and Sports and Fitness attracted the fastest year on year growth (34.7%, 21.8%, 5.25% and respectively).

What retail categories are Gen Ys searching for online?

2009-10-30T00:45:06Z

In my last post I looked at search terms by 18-24 year old Australian users, and indicated how they were more likely to search for bricks and mortar brands than online players; with an overall tendency to search by brands compared to products.

As expected, some of the retail categories that these brand and product search terms fell into conformed to some gender stereotypes. For example, ‘Apparel’ related terms attracted the highest percentage of search traffic by 18-24 year old female users (25%), while ‘Electronics’ terms were heavily represented by 18-24 year old male users (28%).

· 18-24 year old females, compared to males, were more likely to search in these retail categories: Apparel, Grocery, House and Garden, Ticketing, Sports (e.g. ‘Nike’), Rewards, Books, Health and Beauty, Mall (e.g. ‘Chadstone shopping centre’), Comparison Shopping (e.g. ‘Shopbot’), Toys, Video and Discount (e.g. ‘Best and Less’).

· 18-24 year old males, compared to females, were more likely to search for brands and products in Electronics, Department Stores, Music, Classifieds, Auctions, Automotive, Mobile, Games, Computers, Hardware, Household, Stationery and Notebooks.

·Apparel brands searched on by 18-24 year old females included, ‘forever new’, ‘supre’, ‘valley girl’, ‘dotti’ and ‘sportsgirl’. Product terms included, ‘engagement rings’, ‘sunglasses’ and ‘dresses’.

· Electronics brands searched on by 18-24 year old males included, ‘apple’, ‘jb hifi’, ‘hp’ and ‘dell’. Product terms included, ‘iphone’, ‘nokia n97’, ‘laptops’, ‘mac’ and ‘tomtom’. Brand names on notebooks included, ‘dell laptops’, ‘toshiba laptops’, ‘hp laptops’ and ‘sony vaio’.

Greater price-sensitivity by female shoppers

It was also interesting to observe that 18-24 year old females had a stronger tendency than males to search on terms related to Comparison Shopping, Rewards and Discount categories. This means that retailers should ensure they are well-represented on comparison shopping websites and reward schemes for products targeted at females.

Retailers can use search behaviour on retail categories to help prioritise which products they market to different age and gender groups across all of their marketing activities. Keyword lists can also be fine-tuned by delving further into the search tail by each segment.

This post and the previous one are based on Experian Hitwise Custom data. To find out more, email csm@hitwise.com.

How do Gen Ys search online when they do shopping research?

2009-10-27T04:19:47Z

Now that we’re into the lead up to Christmas shopping, there has been some commentary on what tactics retailers will apply to make the most of online shopping, including social media. Given this could potentially become a crowded space, retailers have an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage by using search data to deepen their understanding of target customers.

Recently we looked at the search traffic of 18-24 year old users in Australia to get a preview of their shopping preferences (based on head of household demographics data, 4 weeks ending 26/9/09). We also broke down searches by gender to see which brands and products resounded with each group.

Some general behaviour we noted:

·Bricks and mortar searches much more dominant than online brands. 18-24 year old females and males were both more likely to search for bricks and mortar brands, accounting for 73% and 70% of searches respectively.

·18-24 year old females are more brand-conscious than males. 85% of top shopping searches by females were for brand names only, compared to 82% for males.

·18-24 year old males are more product-oriented in their searches than females. Product terms accounted for 16% of searches by males compared to 12% for females.

So what does this mean for retailers?

Given the high volume of searches for bricks and mortar brands, traditional retailers need a strong online presence to ensure they’re capturing pre-qualified consumer interest. On the flip-slide, online brands need to do a better job of increasing their brand awareness amongst Gen Ys.

Retailers should also prioritise branding campaigns (above-the-line and display etc.) for attracting 18-24 year old female customers, while Pay-Per-Click budgets should be ramped up for products targeted at 18-24 year old males.

(These principles may well apply across older age groups, but are outside of this study for the meantime.)

Later this week I will publish the top searches by retail categories for 18-24 year old users. Stay tuned.

Kindle searches spike 300% in Australia

2009-10-19T03:29:07Z

The recent announcement that the Kindle will be available to Australian consumers resulted in a 300% lift in searches during the week ending 10 October 2009, with searches maintaining their momentum the following week. Australian interest in the Kindle has long been apparent this year, outstripping searches for other ebook readers including the ‘sony reader’, ‘cybook’ and ‘iliad’.

Opportunity to attract more search traffic from ‘ebooks’

Searches for ‘ebooks’ similarly surged off the back of the Kindle announcement with ebook specialist retailers benefiting from most of the traffic. eBooks.com was the leading website to receive traffic from ‘ebooks’, accounting for 47.76% of clicks, followed by e-book.com.au with 11.08% (4 weeks ending 17 October 2009). Dymocks was the leading traditional retailer receiving search traffic on ‘ebooks’ (13th position overall), while Amazon.com ranked ahead at 8th position. Given the substantial and consistent volume of searches on ‘ebooks’, there is an opportunity for more book retailers to optimise their websites for this term.

Consumers are searching for free ebooks

One of the interesting developments in the publishing industry we’ll see next year is the launch of Google Editions, an online book store. As you can see below, searches for ‘free ebooks’ were top of mind amongst Australian users, signaling that one of the challenges for Google and Amazon will be getting consumers used to paying for their ebooks - in a similar fashion to the online music industry before the itunes era. Also of interest were searches for 'free pdf ebooks' and ‘ebooks for iphone’, suggesting that users won’t necessarily get locked into a specific platform when browsing for ebooks.

Personally, as someone who (shamefully) spends more time these days buying books than actually reading them cover to cover, I’m hoping I’ll spend a lot less money when I can gleam over the latest ebook titles instead.

eBay 10 Years On

2009-10-13T01:17:17Z

Last week eBay Australia’s website celebrated its 10th anniversary, so I thought it timely to have a look at the website’s performance over the past few years.

Over the past 10 years eBay Australia has had many local competitors come and go, amongst them GoFish and Stuff, only to see them fold under the continued success of the eBay brand. In other sectors, established brands have risen and fallen and through all of this eBay has continued to prosper.

eBay Australia has the second highest online penetration rate amongst local Internet users, only behind eBay UK, when compared to the markets measured by Experian Hitwise. This highlights the strength and dominance of the eBay brand in the Australian market.

The chart below aggregates the top 10 eBay sites visited by local users, highlights the comparative strength of the brand across Australia, UK, US, Canada and Singapore.

In the past three years Australian Internet users’ visits to the online Auction industry has declined 7.8%, impacted by increased competition from Classifieds brands such as Gumtree and Craigslist and the rising share of visits attributed to Social Media brands such as Facebook.

The Classified industry has increased 41.7% over the past three years (September 2009 compared to October 2006) on the back of large increases by the local Gumtree websites (200 to 900%+). Auctions websites maintain a commanding share of visits enjoying 7 times as many visits by comparison to Classifieds websites and one in every 49 visits by Australian Internet Users.

eBay is the dominant brand in Australia, with 39 of its branded websites accounting for 88.3% of Auction visits. eBay Australia accounts for 81.9% of eBay websites, and 72.3% of all Auction visits.

Ranked as the leading Auctions and Shopping Classifieds website for the past three years, eBay is currently the number 7 most visited website by Australian Internet users behind Google (.com.au and .com), Facebook, Live Mail, NineMSN and YouTube.

The term ‘ebay’ was the fourth most searched for term during the 4 weeks ending 3 October 2009 also featuring the in the 6th and 54th highest volume search terms, consolidating these terms places the eBay brand as the third most search for brand online behind Facebook and YouTube, with almost 1 in every 100 search terms containing the eBay brand, (0.98%).

eBay’s audience could be described as spanning all elements of Australian society with an emphasis on blue collar workers in new and outer suburbs plus country and coastal centres. For the 4 weeks ending 3 October 2009 the four most over represented Mosaic Lifestyle Groups also reflect the largest share of visits to eBay. Over the past 12 months there has been minimal change to audience profile of eBay offering opportunities to develop strategies and tactics to increase share of the more affluent and metropolitan Mosaic Groups.

Other key statistics include:

* Average visit time increased 55% since October 2006 to 29 minutes 54 seconds.
* Gender split 53.3% Female, 46.7% Male (index of 101 and 99 against the Australian Online Population)
* 25-34 (108) and 35-44 (119) age-groups are over-represented on eBay Australia compared to the online population and make up a combined 46.3% of visits.
* 81.8% of audience on east coast states (QLD, NSW, VIC and TAS), with Tasmania (112), SA (112) and VIC (106) having the highest over representation against the online population.

Happy Birthday eBay!

Early-adopters in NZ looking to shop on funky T-shirt websites

2009-10-12T01:23:08Z

Last week we launched Hitwise Lifestyle, our online segmentation and targeting tool, in the New Zealand market. Hitwise Lifestyle is built on Mosaic, a geodemographic classification system developed by Pacific Micromarketing and Experian. Each of New Zealand's 1.4 million residential households is allocated into 42 Types within 11 Groups based on a wide range of statistical and independently-researched sources.

One of the key Mosaic Lifestyle Groups is ‘Urban Intelligence'. Accounting for 4.8% of New Zealand households, Urban Intelligence is comprised of tech-savvy young professionals, with high household incomes and strong spending habits (Download our full report on Urban Intelligence).

The retail behaviour of this group is of particular interest leading up to Christmas. While Shopping & Classifieds - Auctions is a significant online industry in NZ, it is under-indexed in visits by Urban Intelligence. Retail verticals that did perform strongly in attracting visits from Urban Intelligence included Apparel and Accessories, Grocery and Alcohol, Health and Beauty, Flowers and Gifts and Department Stores. Below is a table with the leading Apparel and Accessories websites visited by Urban Intelligence:

· Designer t-shirt online shop, 1-Daytee was the leading Apparel and Accessories website visited by Urban Intelligence, 12 weeks ending 3 October 2009. US t-shirt company, Threadless.com also ranked amongst the top sites, and attracted 1 in 10 visits from Urban Intelligence.

· Given that the Apparel and Accessories industry is usually dominated by female Internet users, it was interesting to see that visits to 1-Daytee and Threadless.com were comprised of 59.1% and 56.6% male users respectively.

Urban Intelligence highly engaged with overseas News and Media sites

An important application of Hitwise Lifestyle is understanding the content preferences of a particular segment to inform media spending decisions. Urban Intelligence, for example, has the highest engagement with News and Media websites compared to all Mosaic Groups; 16% above the online average for the 12 weeks ending 3 October 2009.

Of further interest is the strong percentage of visits that overseas News and Media websites attract from Urban Intelligence, reflecting this segment's high education levels. As the below table demonstrates, visits to Guardian.co.uk were comprised of 12.53% by Urban Intelligence households, while Sohu.com News attracted 9.91%, The New York Times 9.37%, CNN.com International – US Edition 9.37%, BBC Homepage 8.1% and BBC News 7.89%.

Click here to learn more about Hitwise Lifestyle.

Costco Australia launch - Who is feeling the biggest online impact?

2009-09-07T04:38:41Z

The opening of US retailer and membership warehouse club, Costco in Melbourne attracted a healthy amount of fanfare online, with the term “costco” increasing 8-fold during the week ending 22 August 2009, compared to the previous week. The Costco Australia website made a strong debut in the Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds – Department Stores category, ranking at 12th position during the week ending 22 August 2009, behind Kmart Australia at 10th position, but ahead of Myer (at 14th position) and David Jones (16th position).

Commentators have noted that the launch of Costco will affect the whole retail ecosystem here, including large retailers and small businesses. Indeed, the original concept behind Costco was a ‘hypermarket’, a combination of discount supermarket and department store. With this in mind, I thought I would take an early look at Costco’s online competitive traffic to see where consumers were doing the most comparison shopping. Below are the Shopping & Classifieds websites that consumers visited before Costco Australia during August 2009.

ALDI Australia notably featured as the 4th highest Shopping & Classifieds website referring traffic to Costco Australia, with a returning visitor rate of 57.8%. IKEA was another major bricks and mortar retailer sending traffic to Costco, while Officeworks Business Direct represented competition within the B2B space. There were also a number of bargain shopping websites in Costco’s upstream traffic, including OzBargain, Buckscooping (which has a list of Costco prices) and Catch Of The Day – emphasising the appeal of Costco to discount-savvy shoppers.

Costco attracts similar online audience to Myer

An early indication of Costco’s Lifestyle Mosaic profile reveals the highest-representation of visits from multicultural households (“Metro Multiculture”) followed by young families (“Pushing the Boundaries”). Another way of assessing which retailers will potentially compete against Costco is via the Hitwise Lifestyle similarity tool, which profiles websites that attract a similar audience to Costco Australia.

Myer attracted the most similar Mosaic profile to Costco Australia, with a matching index of 0.88 (1 being an identical match). Classifieds websites, Gumtree Melbourne and Cracker also had a similar audience to Costco, underscoring the breadth of Costco’s potential impact on consumer behaviour. As Costco opens more stores and grows in Australia, we’ll be keeping a track of its online performance, particularly within the grocery space leading up to Christmas.

What gadgets are early adopters searching for?

2009-04-28T01:44:12Z

Later this week I’ll be sharing some insights at the Australian Retail Symposium 2009 on how specific demographic segments search for retail brands and products. I’ve looked at searches by Australian households in our Hitwise Lifestyle segment, ‘Young Ambition’, who are early adopters of technology and are likely to research products over the Internet. Here’s a sample of their leading electronics search terms during March 2009:

• ‘mobile phones’ was the leading product-related search term, but ‘Young Ambition’ were much more likely to search for ‘mobile phone reviews’ with an index of 485 compared to the online population average (100).

• ‘iphone accessories’ attracted higher volumes of search than ‘iphone,’ suggesting that ‘Young Ambition’ are seasoned iPhone users and are now looking for the latest accessories.

• ‘Omnia’ and the ‘LG Web Slider’ are providing strong competition to the iPhone amongst ‘Young Ambition’ households, with high search volumes compared to the online population.

• ‘navman’ and ‘tomtom’ searches were over-represented amongst ‘Young Ambition’ during Christmas 2008 but were under-represented during March 2009. This suggests that navigation products are becoming less of a fad amongst early adopters.

• ‘headphones’, 'cameras' and ‘laptops’ were other leading product search terms. ‘Sennheiser’ related terms also appeared in the long-tail of ‘Young Ambition’ searches.

Retailers can gain an understanding of the products and brands that resound with specific consumer groups by drilling into their search behaviour. Stay tuned for a similar analysis on high-end shoppers and suburban families.

Bricks and Mortar Retailers in Australia are winning the online battle

2009-03-02T00:23:54Z

Last week we released our latest Hitwise APAC report, Retail Review Christmas 2008 – Insights for Retail Planning. A key takeout from the report was the significant shift towards Bricks and Mortar Retailers during Christmas 2008, as traditional brands began to leverage online for connecting directly with consumers (Alan first spotted this trend in Australia late last year).

According to Hitwise, visits to Bricks and Mortar Retailers by Australian Internet users attracted year-on-year growth of 19.2% in December 2008, while visits to Online Retailers declined by 7.7%. 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 findings from the report include:

•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. This growth is underpinned by a significant investment in paid search (see my previous retail update).

•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.

•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.

I thought I would also share this Treemap that we presented during our retail webinar last week. In the research team, we’re always on the lookout for different visualisation techniques for Hitwise data. In this case, we found Treemaps particularly effective for communicating dual metrics on a macro level. In the map below, the size of each rectangle represents Australian market share of visits within the Shopping & Classifieds industry. More ‘blue’ rectangles represent sub-categories with high growth, while more ‘orange’ rectangles represent sectors with higher rates of decline.

Click image to enlarge:

This analysis shows that Auctions is by far the largest sub-category within the Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds industry, accounting for over a third of visits in January 2009. Rewards and Directories, which includes comparison shopping websites, accounted for about 10%, highlighting its importance as an affiliate sector. ‘Blue’ or fast moving industries included Appliances and Electronics, Classifieds, Apparel and Accessories, and House and Garden. ‘Orange’ or declining industries included Ticketing and Music.

You can also check out Heather’s retail map in the US. I’d be keen to hear your feedback on Treemaps and any other suggestions you have for data visualisation.

Christmas 2008 Retail Analysis: Electronics Retailers Most Active on Paid Search

2009-02-02T23:28:42Z

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. Underpinning the strong performance of visits to Appliances and Electronics websites was a significant investment in paid search traffic by electronics retailers.

In a Hitwise portfolio of the top 100 product search terms driving traffic to the Shopping and Classifieds industry, electronics-related terms accounted for 63.59% of paid clicks (4 weeks ending 27 December 2008). The top 100 product search term portfolio represented 5.86% of all paid clicks to Shopping and Classifieds websites.

Top 100 Product Search Terms to Shopping and Classifieds by Product Category

· Competition on leading paid terms was fierce, with paid rates (versus organic traffic) ranging from 18.54% ('Music') to 56.37% ('Tickets).

· The leading product search term was the 'iphone', attracting a paid search rate of 69.02%. Other leading product terms included, 'wii', 'ipod', 'tomtom', and 'navman'.

· Google was responsible for driving 20.34% of paid clicks to the top 100 product search terms; followed by Live with 0.69% and Yahoo! Search with 0.56% (Search Engine analysis is on respective Australian and .com properties).

In addition to capitalising on the peak shopping period for the year, the strong activity on pay-per-click campaigns by retailers may have been motivated by the Government stimulus package before Christmas; retailers were looking for a boost in consumers spending on presents. Retailers will need to monitor and adjust their search marketing efforts in response to any spending incentives provided by the Government this year.

Update 6 February:

Based on feedback here is clarification of the Search Engine Analysis provided above:

Paid clicks represented 21.79% of search traffic to the top 100 product search term portfolio. If we look at the total clicks sent, including both paid and organic, Google represented 93.17%, Live 3.61% and Yahoo 2.3 % of traffic.

We'll be releasing a Hitwise APAC Christmas 2008 Retail report later this month so stay tuned.

Toys R Easy

2008-12-24T01:27:41Z

Only a few days to Christmas, so I thought I'd share some last minute tips for the last few gift purchases for the kids.

The list below is the fastest moving terms driving visits to the Shopping & Classifieds – Toys & Hobbies category over the past week, (comparing week ending 20 December to week ending 13 December, 2008).

The amazing thing is the strength of the tried and true kids gifts, the toys that were around when I was young and even when my parents were young, for example the View master has been around for 65 years, amazing.

Other notable inclusions are the eternally reinvented Lego, Barbie although now challenged by Bratz and My Scene Dolls as well. And an all time favourite, Nerf that can still break things if thrown hard enough!

All of a sudden the last minute gift is easy.

Boxing Day Retail Test

2008-12-23T04:58:49Z

One of the biggest sporting events of the calendar kicks off on Boxing Day, and it's not the annual Boxing Day Test Match at the MCG, but the now traditional Boxing Day sales at retailers around the country.

The heavily promoted sales have turned Boxing Day into the largest online retail day in Australia, our own equivalent of Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving) in the US.

Online visitation to the Shopping & Classifieds industry continues to track comparatively with 2007. The chart below highlights the Boxing Day peak and the current December trend against the previous year.

Share of visits on Boxing Day 2007 increased 24.93% when compared to the share of visits received on Christmas Eve, this was fuelled by a number of industries where Boxing Day is also the top online retail day of the year.

Shopping & Classified Industry	Boxing Day 2007 Increase % compared to Christmas Eve 2007
House and Garden	92.96%
Appliances and Electronics	75.86%
Department Stores	66.09%
Apparel and Accessories	52.06%
Video and Games	46.69%
Rewards and Directories	32.42%
Automotive	15.22%

Other noticeable industries include Shopping & Classifieds – Music with 66.44% increase when compared to the share of visits received on Christmas Eve but sits behind Christmas Day as the largest online retail day, impacted by the iTunes phenomenon.

Boxing Day online activity for Shopping & Classifieds – Sport and Fitness sits behind a mid-December peak, but still generates a substantial jump from Christmas Eve with the share of visits increasing 31.04%.

So what does this all mean?

Are there any last minute affiliate or advertising opportunities that you can implement to take advantage of these retail peaks to generate leads and create sales?

Follow Hitwise Asia Pacific on Twitter

In tough times, in brands we trust!

2008-11-06T06:06:07Z

In a previous blog – Online Gathering Retail Muscle – I compared the top 100 Bricks and Mortar retailers with the top 100 pure online retailers to establish a picture of the online retail landscape.

With the credit crunch taking effect and the amount of financial uncertainty surrounding us, it's a good time to review that post as we enter the crucial retail period this Christmas.

As the chart above clearly highlights, the traditional brands – Bricks & Mortar retailers, are receiving a substantial increase in visits and now lead over their online counterparts. Bricks & Mortar retailers currently hold a 21.88% share lead over Online Retailers as of week ending November 1, 2008, reversing the reported 28.7% lead by Online Retailers in week ending June 21, 2008. This separation between the two custom categories has not been seen since late 2005.

Bricks & Mortar Retailers have seen a year on year growth in visits of 29.87%, and the majority of this growth has been seen in the past four weeks, increasing 23.17%. This past week's growth of 13.79% is strong compared to the corresponding week in 2007 of 3.71%.

Click chart to enlarge.

Online Retailers are enjoying accelerated growth over the past 4 weeks up 4.19%, compared to year-on-year growth of just 1.94%. This past week's growth (w/e November 1, 2008) is higher than the corresponding weeks in 2007 with an increase of 1.75% versus 0.74%.

Click chart to enlarge.

So what has caused this change in the landscape, is it the credit crisis, is it the larger brands starting to have some greater marketing impact online or are other factors at play?

In previous years Online Retailers growth has outpaced Bricks & Mortar brands online leading into Christmas so this is potentially a substantial change in the online retailing landscape.

"In tough times people revert to brands they know and trust" is an old adage and an underlying reason why the development and management of your brand is so important.

Opportunities abound in a tough market to enhance and develop brands and market share to capture not only the short-term benefit but also the longer-term revenue advantage in a rising market.

I'd be interested to hear any alternate perspectives on this trend and philosophy.

And, as always, we urge you to follow Hitwise Asia Pacific on Twitter to keep up with the latest Internet data and trends.

A Crucial Six Weeks for Retail

2008-11-05T13:44:03Z

The current financial uncertainty / credit crisis is throwing up all sorts of hypotheses relating to online behaviour for us to investigate. Last week I presented at the AIMIA - Present Trends in Advertising forum and as part of that I discussed what is happening currently in the Retail industry.

Retail is now coming into the crucial four to six weeks of the year and predicting the likely outcome of the current trends is difficult and constantly changing. I opted out of making predications only to say that the next few weeks will provide us with the indicators of whether it will be a festive season for retailers.

The chart below highlights the visitation to the Shopping & Classified Industry and the trend since July 2007.

The downward trend since the end of the financial year was returning the online share of visits to 2007 levels which ocurred in w/e 18/10/08, as can be seen in the following chart that captures the trends of the first 18 weeks of each FY08 and FY09.

The past two weeks show promising signs that the retail industries in Australia may not be hurt as much as the perception, with an increase of 3.14% in share of vists (w/e Nov 1 vs. w/e October 18) turning around the trend and placing this year 1.64 percentage points ahead of the corresponding week in 2007 (w/e November 3, 2007).

While the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the National Retail Trade at current prices rising 0.2 per cent in September, forecasters have a sombre outlook for the coming months.

Over the coming weeks we will add more analysis to the Retail sector, looking at those categories that are recession proof and those that are losing appeal.

Follow Hitwise Asia Pacific on Twitter.

House and Sports Shopping Sites Grow in Visits by Kiwis

2008-10-17T00:38:15Z

Online Retailers in the New Zealand House & Garden and Sports & Fitness industries enjoyed substantial growth of 55.1% and 35.2% respectively against all websites in September 2008 compared to September 2007. Leading players in these sectors are well placed to take advantage of the fast approaching Christmas shopping period.

The top website in the online House & Garden industry was Mitre 10 New Zealand, which accounted for 9.35% market share of visits in September 2008. Mitre 10 New Zealand grew its share of the House & Garden industry by 61.7% year on year in September 2008.

Specialty websites around baby furnishings and wear featured prominently amongst the top 10 websites, including The Baby Factory, Baby Universe and Babycity.co.nz. Other leading House & Garden websites included Bunnings Warehouse New Zealand with 2.74% share of visits and Briscoes Homeware with 2.37% share.

In the Sports & Fitness industry, Torpedo7, a retailer for biking gear, dominated with 14.9% share of visits in September 2008, representing a 3-fold increase from the same time last year. Leading bricks and mortar brands also had a strong presence online with Rebel Sport New Zealand, Adidas and Nike featuring amongst the top 5 websites.

Vouchermate Takes Off Amidst Economic Downturn

As economic conditions tighten, consumers hit the web to maximise their discretionary spend. Vouchermate, a website where companies display downloadable vouchers for discounts on their goods and services, has risen quickly in online usage in New Zealand. The NZ website increase more than 4-fold between weeks ending 5 July 2008 and 11 October 2008, and ranked at fourth position in the Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds – Rewards & Directories category, week ending 11 October 2008. Search Terms driving traffic to VoucherMate were primarily brand-oriented, with 'voucher mate' accounting for 16.6% of clicks (search resulting in a visit) for the 24-weeks ending 11 October 2008 - highlighting the strength of the Vouchermate brand amongst New Zealand consumers.

Online Gathering Retail Muscle

2008-08-15T05:25:45Z

Earlier this month my colleague in the UK, Robin Goad, posted a blog, titled "High street retailers winning the online battle" looking at the online shopping battle between High St traders and pure play online retailers. It noted that the High St traders were starting to pull away from their online counterparts in garnering online traffic share.

Down Under it seems we have a different picture evolving and the traditional retailers should be considering responses to alter this emerging trend.

The chart below which compares a custom category of Online Retailers with a custom category of the top 100 Bricks and Mortar Retailers in Australia (ranked by online market share) including Coles, Dick Smith Electronics and Harvey Norman, suggests that the margin between the two categories has closed substantially during July, after an Australian traffic difference of 28.7% at week ending June 21.

The Online Retailers custom category consisting of the top 100 pure-play online only retailers, such as Amazon.com, DealsDirect.com.au and StrawberryNet-Australia, dominated their Bricks and Mortar counterparts in the lead up to the end of financial year sales. This is a worrying aspect when we review the historical patterns leading into Christmas, where the share growth of Online Retailers has outpaced the traditional Bricks & Mortars businesses.

The overall growth trend of both the Bricks and Mortar and Online retailers is promising but the Australian market share trails the UK substantially. High Street Traders enjoy 208.3% higher traffic share in the UK than Bricks & Mortar retailers in Australia, while UK online retailers generate 154.1% higher traffic share than their Australian counterparts.

There is good reason to be optimistic about retailing activity online, there is strong growth and opportunity for further exponential growth as broadband speeds improve and larger marketers embrace the channel. The time is nigh, are new competitors muscling into your traditional space? If so, it's time to up the ante!

In our recent Webinar, "Christmas Retail Planning" our Senior Analyst, Sandra Hanchard, reviewed search determinants such as 'free', 'cheap', 'prices', 'discount', and 'used' and their association with specific industries. This analysis may assist in highlighting the value and share received by online retailers leading into the end of year sales. I recommend that you put aside 30 minutes to view the Webinar presented by Sandra and I.

And, as always, we urge you to follow Hitwise Asia Pacific on Twitter to keep up with the latest Internet data and trends.

iPhone plans and prices top of mind

2008-07-08T23:02:08Z

Previously I wrote about how iPhone features and apps were driving consumer searches during rumours of a launch date in Australia. As we get closer to July 11, it's clear that Australian consumers are now focused on the pricing and carriers for the iPhone as indicated by their search behaviour.

Here's an updated view of my chart where iPhone plans and price specific queries were nearly 5x greater than searches related to iPhone features and apps (week ending 5 July 2008). It'll be interesting to see if consumers remain highly price-conscious about the iPhone right up until the Christmas retail period, or if searches for iPhone applications will become more prominent again.

Australian iPhone carriers

As many of the search queries for iPhone plans and prices included the names of carriers, here’s a more detailed analysis of their respective brands. The below chart compares search queries on the iPhone that either included the term, 'Optus', 'Telstra' or 'Vodafone' - providing a measure of consumer awareness of each carrier.

iPhone-related search queries for Optus, Telstra and Vodafone spiked week ending 14 June 2008 immediately after the announcement, with Optus and Vodafone brands leading neck-in-neck. Telstra’s later announcement that it would also enter the market to sell the iPhone attracted significant media coverage, with search volumes for Telstra iPhone-related queries higher than Optus and Vodafone, week ending 5 July 2008.

Putting the dominance of eBay and PayPal into context

2008-07-04T01:09:24Z

During the Christmas shopping period last year I wrote a piece for Inside Retailing about the challenges and missed online opportunities for retailers in the Australian market. It's a good time to revisit this topic in light of the proposal made by ACCC to revoke eBay's PayPal only policy. While eBay's bid has been dropped, it's worth bringing the spotlight on Internet retail activity in Australia.

ACCC chairman, Graeme Samuel made a fair observation about "eBay's position as Australia's leading online marketplace." eBay Australia was the leading website in the Hitwise online Shopping & Classifieds industry in May 2008, accounting for 29.07% market share of visits. The next website to follow was eBay with 4.09% share of visits. During this period, Hitwise tracked over 31,500 websites in the Shopping & Classifieds industry, ranging from comparison shopping websites to the online properties of major retail brands.

Visits to the online Auctions industry are in fact particularly high in Australia. Auctions websites accounted for 38.11% of visits to all Shopping & Classifieds websites in May 2008 in Australia, compared to 21.35% by U.S. Internet users.

This article from the WSJ surmises that "consumers Down Under have plenty of choices of where to trade their goods online." Within the Auctions space, the combined properties of ebay.com and ebay.com.au accounted for 83.3% market share of visits by Australian Internet users during the week ending 28 June 2008.

eBay's nearest competitor, Trading Post Online debuted at 3rd position (week ending 14/06/08) when it launched its auctions service and accounted for 3.78% share of visits during the week ending 28 June 2008. Oztion Auctions followed with 2.53% market share, reaching its highest point ever during the week ending 28 June 2008.

Online Payments

The crunch of the ACCC's proposal however was not about the dominance of eBay; it was about the competitiveness of online payment systems in Australia. In a Hitwise custom category of 20 alternative payment services, that excludes major financial institutions, PayPal is by far the dominant player accounting for 82.24% share of visits week ending 28 June 2008. Google Checkout and Paymate Australia accounted for 1.85% and 0.88% share of visits respectively.

When we compare PayPal against all Business & Finance websites, that includes major financial institutions, it ranked 22nd during the week ending 28 June 2008. In comparison, PayPal ranked at 4th position in the Business & Finance industry in the U.S. market.

Window of Opportunity for Major Retail Brands

With the spotlight on eBay, PayPal and the local sellers who operate on eBay, competing retail brands should be considering the online retail experience they offer. Can they provide a seamless and secure online shopping experience that provides more choice for Australian consumers?

Post Holiday Shopping Wrap-Up

2008-01-14T03:07:01Z

Here are a few summary points on Australian consumer behaviour online during the 2007 holiday shopping period:

* Retail sectors that performed that performed strongly online during the Christmas 2007 period included Appliances & Electronics, Books, Music and Video & Games, experiencing substantial increases upwards of 30% during the last quarter of 2007.

* Visits to the Department Stores online industry were also solid, increasing in category share by 42% between weeks ending 6 October 2007 and 15 December 2007. This compares to 26% growth within the same time period in 2006.

* Shopping & Classifieds website visits peaked in the holiday shopping season during the week ending 1 December 2007. This compared to week ending 25 November 2006 the prior year confirming that the optimum time for reaching consumers remains between late November and early December.

* Searches for 'boxing day sales' spiked dramatically during the week ending 29 December 2007, with the News & Media industry capturing 19.6% of related search traffic, compared to 8.03% for Shopping & Classifieds websites.

* Searches for 'digital photo frames' spiked during the week ending 15 December 2007; almost triple the volume of searches compared to the same time last year.

* The strong growth in music visits was due to Apple iTunes, which experienced a year-on-year increase of 15%, comparing weeks ending 30 December 2006 and 29 December 2007. New users comprised 72% of visits to the Apple iTunes website for the week ending 29 December 2007, suggesting that recipients of iPods on Christmas day were eager to logon and download media for their new gifts.

* Pure-play shopping websites, DealsDirect.com.au, oo.com.au and Lasoo.com.au had a strong impact on driving growth to the online Department Stores industry during early to mid December, as consumers made allowances for shipping times; while Kmart, Big W and Myer enjoyed significant gains peaking week ending 29 December 2007, enjoying last-minute and post Christmas sales visits.

Trifle, Prawn Salad and Apricot Chicken: Gap Analysis

2007-12-20T05:59:11Z

A common topic that comes up at pre-Christmas parties here is what exactly is traditional Aussie fare. While inspecting visits to the Shopping & Classifieds – Grocery & Alcohol industry, which surged by 20% comparing w/ending 6 October 07 and 15 December 07, I produced a search gap analysis table between the top two players in the industry, Coles and Woolworths Australia.

After filtering out brand terms, a clear difference between the websites observed was the number of food-related search terms that Coles is receiving – indicating content opportunities for Woolworths to increase their online share:

I then ran another gap analysis report between Coles and the Food and Beverage – Lifestyle and Reference industry, which brought up the names of a number of celebrity chefs, including Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Donna Hay. Producing affiliate content around chefs and culinary publications could be an opportunity for Coles to increase their search-driven traffic.

Sweet-toothed items that were amongst the top 30 terms included, 'christmas cookies', 'rum balls', 'rocky road recipe' and 'pavlova recipe'.

Year-on-year increase of 28% to Alcohol Websites

On a side note, it was also interesting to see that alcohol websites have enjoyed increasing traction amongst Internet users – with a 20-month high observed w/ending 15 December 2007.

While leading player, Dan Murphy's has been a driving force in this growth, increasing its year-on-year share amongst all sites by 54% w/ending 15 December 2007; there has been significant competition from Australian retailers in the wine industry, with fast-movers over the year including Wine Room, The Wine Society, 1st Choice, Australian Wine Selectors, Australian Wine and The Wine Liquidation Centre. Despite a dry climate, consumer demand for wine is high.

Holiday Shopping Fast Movers - Lasoo Leads

2007-12-11T05:44:32Z

Hitwise Fast Moving Search Terms to the Shopping & Classifieds industry reveal which brands and products are top-of-mind amongst consumers, leading up to the holiday shopping season.

New shopping search engine, Lasoo featured as the fastest moving search term to the Shopping & Classifieds industry for the 4 weeks ending 1 December 2007, indicating a successful launch campaign and consumer interest in the service which offers current specials from participating catalogues around Australia. Lasoo ranked 40th overall in the Shopping & Classifieds industry for the week ending 1 December 2007.

Festive items within the top 15 fast moving search terms included 'hampers', 'christmas lights' and 'christmas presents'. Retailers and brands that were top-of-mind included 'angus and robinson', 'crocs', 'target au' and 'oakley sunglasses'.

In the Appliances & Electronics industry, 'JB Hi-Fi Australia' and 'retravision perth' were the fastest moving retailers being searched. 'Nokia 1110i' was the fastest moving product search term, with 'fuji digital camera' ranked at 12th position. White good brands that appeared in the top 15 included 'black and decker australia' and 'westinghouse cooktops'.

Women's clothing featured prominently amongst the top terms to the Apparel & Accessories industry, including 'mini dresses', 'women's swimwear', 'womens shoes', and 'ladies watches'. 'Ugg' also featured at 14th position, representing a global fashion trend.

In the retail Books industry, recipe publication, 'maggies harvest' was the fastest moving search term, while fantasy fiction writer, 'kinley macgregor' was the leading author-related search term. Book retailers in the top 15 included 'angus books', 'bookshops australia' and 'abc shops australia'.

Retailers have the opportunity to intensify their online campaigns as they compete for consumer spend. As Christmas draws nearer, several retail industries have increased in market share significantly, including Department Stores, Books and Appliances & Electronics which grew by 36%, 34% and 28% respectively comparing weeks ending 6 October 2007 and 8 December 2007.

Fast Moving Retail Categories - Singapore

2007-11-22T01:40:08Z

Apparel & Accessories was the fastest-growing retail sub-sector amongst the Shopping & Classifieds industry in the Singapore market, comparing weeks ending 11 November 2006 and 10 November 2007. Apparel & Accessories websites experienced a 3.03% percentage point increase over a yearly period to account for 9.26% of Shopping & Classifieds visits.

Search data indicates that consumers have a high propensity to search for brand names, with the top 30 search terms to the Apparel & Accessories industry for the 24 weeks ending 10 November 2007 comprised of leading brands. The top 5 search terms were 'coach', 'gucci', 'burberry', 'victoria secret' and 'topshop'. Other local brands within the top 30 included, 'lee hwa' and 'bayb'.

In the Video & Games sector, Play-asia led the sub-category with 11.13% market share for the week ending 10 November 2007, followed by Half.com (7.05%), CD Universe (4.11%), Qisahn.com (3.93%) and GameShop (3.75%). Searches for 'halo 3' spiked by 685% the week ending 29 September 2007 following its launch by Microsoft. While there was a subsequent spike in searches for 'xbox 360', the dominance in searches of 'psp' over other consoles suggests that the psp will be a popular Christmas gift item again this year in Singapore.

Net Communities & Chat is becoming an increasingly important source of traffic to Shopping & Classifieds websites, accounting for 10.21% of visits for the week ending 10 November 2007. This compared to 8.8% for Search Engines, and 6.19% for web-based email. Google Singapore was the top referring website to the Shopping & Classifieds industry for the week ending 10 November 2007, accounting for 18.06% of visits.

Industry statistics for Shopping & Classifieds websites reveals that only 37.2% of visits by Singapore Internet users resulted in a visit to a Singapore website, week ending 10 November 2007. This represents an opportunity for local retailers to capture a larger share of consumer spend by providing local content.

Product Category Winners for Holiday Shopping

2007-10-24T05:22:15Z

Here at Hitwise, we track 21 sub-categories under the bracket of the online Shopping & Classifieds industry in Australia, with 17 dedicated to direct retail. Given the predictable rise in visits to Shopping & Classifieds that we see November - December each year, I thought it would be more interesting to drill down to the sub-category level to examine which products tend to benefit online during this period.

First let's zoom in on the actual weeks that visits to Shopping & Classifieds peaked during last year's holiday shopping season:

You'll see that visits really began to vamp up from mid-October. There was an early spike week ending 25 November 2006, which was actually the peak week for Shopping & Classifieds online in 2006 overall. Shoppers who left their Christmas shopping a bit later peaked in visits around week ending 16 December 2006, with a surge in traffic from procrastinators week ending 30 December 2006.

Now let's look at the product categories that significantly increased in market share from mid-October to the three time points. Note I've kept in sub-categories such as Auctions and Classifieds to keep a check on their effect.

Some interesting points from this table:

• Appliances & Electronics, Books, Department Stores, Flowers & Gifts, Grocery & Alcohol and Video & Games attract significant growth rates for all three time points.
• Music, House & Garden and Sports & Fitness attract last minute shoppers (as well as bargain-hunters for post-Christmas day discounts).
• Flowers & Gifts had the highest growth rate, with 55% w/ending 16/12/06.
• Grocery & Alcohol spiked by 38% w/ending 16/12/06, corresponding to the highest volume in searches for 'hampers' in 2006.

Predictions for Holiday Shopping 2007

• Visits to Department Stores will increase throughout December 2007, but will peak late in the month as users browse online but purchase instore just prior to Christmas day.
• Music, Video and Games will peak late December as users have the option of buying gift cards from online services such as iTunes, or bricks and mortar stores such as JBHI-FI.
• Books will remain a popular category throughout the whole holiday shopping period
• House & Garden websites are likely to become an important source of gift ideas this year, having maintained their momentum in 2007 since Christmas 2006.

One thing at least that this analysis has highlighted: while the holiday shopping period does seem to creep up on us earlier every year, there are still plenty of options online for those of us who leave their Christmas shopping to the last minute :)

Making Friends and Money in Hong Kong

2007-07-11T22:46:27Z

On a recent client trip to Hong Kong, I learnt about some interesting regional differences. Compared to other markets we track here at Hitwise, Hong Kong Internet users have the highest volume of visits to Net Communities & Chat (HK 16.6% compared to US 11.9% w/ending 7/7/07); and Stocks & Shares (HK 3.1% compared to US 0.7% w/ending 7/7/07). At the same time, Shopping & Classifieds is still considered a major challenge by businesses.

The below chart shows the interplay between the three industries, where you'll note that visits to Stocks and Shares have leveled and overtaken Retail:

Some of the comments I heard about retail in Hong Kong from both a business and consumer point of view related to population density and trust. As Hong Kong is highly urbanised, 'outdoor' shopping is considered a popular social activity; secondly the issue of trust in online retail security needs to be settled in the minds of Hong Kong users. There is the opportunity to move from an online wholesale environment to a channel which directly meets the needs of consumers.

As businesses look to overcome these hurdles, may I suggest that advertisers wishing to promote their brand and wares for purchase either online or offline look at the Business Information category; or alternatively Fantasy - Sports Betting websites which offer a recreational form of 'trading', another popular activity by Hong Kong users. The below are the top 10 in each category.

Web 2.0 Retailing

2006-11-30T00:59:44Z

A study I've been working on this week shows there is an opportunity for Australian retailers to incorporate Web 2.0 features online such as social networking to increase traction amongst consumers.

According to Hitwise, visits to social networking websites have increased steadily since the beginning of February 2006 to account for 2.2% of all Internet visits for the week ending 25 November 2006. Shopping & Classifieds websites accounted for 6.17% market share in visits in the same time period. There are far less social networking websites however compared to retail sites, indicating the sheer pull of social networking amongst Australian Internet users which retailers could be tapping into.

Market Share of Visits to Shopping & Classifieds (left-axis) vs Social Networking Custom Category (right-axis)

Retail Websites with Web 2.0 Features

In the Shopping & Classifieds - Rewards & Directories industry, there are several price comparison websites that offer Web 2.0 features such as user ratings and reviews. ninemsn Shopping which was the leading site in the category for the week ending 25 November 2006 with 14.8% share of visits to the category, allows users to post comments linked from their hotmail account, leveraging their significant user-base.

Another Australian example is MyShopping.com.au, ranked as the 5th most popular local website in Rewards & Directories, that allows users to store product and review information as part of their membership. Social shopping websites are beginning to extend this concept such as US start-up, Kaboodle. Kaboodle is developing search technology that summaries users' collected shopping information that they can easily act on at purchasing times. Kaboodle also allows users to share their collectibles, a feature of their partnership with eBay.

Benefits of Linking Retail to Social Networking

In addition to price-comparison websites, retailers may also partner with social networking websites that have the advantage of an established user-base with local marketing, such as MySpace. Retailers may also partner with social networking sites that attract users with a propensity to shop online. According to Hitwise Lifestyle data, users in the "Fashionably Wired" Group, who are characterised by high-disposable incomes, were three times more likely than the online population average to visit Google's social networking website, Orkut. Retailers may tap into this local audience to target their desired consumer segment. These are some tactics that will be needed to lift visits to local Shopping & Classifieds websites which in Australia account for 68% of visits, compared to 85.7% in the UK and 98.3% in the US.

There are some positive local trends such as classifieds website, Cracker, operated by Fairfax Digital. Similar to US website, Craigs List, Cracker offers both free discussion forums and classifieds ads tailored to local user groups. Cracker ranked at 2nd position in Shopping & Classifieds - Classifieds for the week ending 25 November 2006 and 21st in the parent shopping category.

What's Ahead?

In 2007, we can expect increased levels of online engagement by Australian users with the rise of consumer generated media. The increasing sophistication of search engines with personalised information and summaries based on commercial intent will make the Internet an increasingly relevant channel for shopping. Retailers in the Australian market need to start incorporating Web 2.0 into their marketing and online distribution strategies.

ninemsn Weather and Holiday Shopping - Unlikely Combination?

2006-10-31T04:15:49Z

Melbourne streets are starting to light up with Christmas decorations in shop windows as retailers give procrastinators like me an early reminder that the shopping season is upon us. It's prompted me to look into Hitwise data for what retail marketers have started implementing online in preparation.

What caught my eye was that ninemsn Shopping had risen to 5th position in the Shopping & Classifieds category for the week ending 14 October 2006, its highest position ever in a period of 24 months. This compared to a ranking of #25 in November last year. The only websites ahead of it were eBay, eBay Australia, Amazon and Email Cash Australia.

Delving into our stats to find the reason for ninemsn Shopping's increase, I created the below chart to reveal that ninemsn's strategy of integrating links to shopping from ninemsn Weather has pushed ninemsn's shopping property into the top tier of retail website visits, which is not an easy feat.

Key Content Traffic Drivers

The above chart shows that ninemsn Weather accounted for over 26% of visits to ninemsn Shopping for the week ending 28 October 2006, compared to less than 1% last year. Other ninemsn properties to have increased clickstream traffic include ninemsn Digital Living and ninemsn Games, which suggests a strategy by ninemsn to concentrate traffic from other popular content areas to its shopping website. We may see more prominent links from other ninemsn sub-domains increase as Christmas draws closer.

But Are Weather Watchers Shoppers?

To understand the relevancy of referrals from ninemsn Weather to ninemsn Shopping we can compare the audience that each website attracts. The below figure shows that ninemsn Weather actually attracts more users from Mosaic Group A - Leading Lifestyles and Group D - Fashionably Wired (above 100 index line) than ninemsn Shopping. Both of these groups have high-disposable incomes and are inclined to shop online, which is an ideal audience source for ninemsn Shopping.

Swimwear Shopping

Finally, many of the shopping links from ninemsn Weather were for swimwear items when I checked; logcial given the warm weather coming up, and an effective tie between website content to retail. The below chart shows the seasonality of swimwear searches peaking right through December last year. Apparel marketers have still got time to tune their online strategies to these searches - ie via leading weather websites.