Retail Sites Gain as Holiday Shopping Season Kicks OffCoupon Sites Rise 32 Percent as Tough Economy Sends Americans Searching for Deals
RESTON, VA, December 16, 2008 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for November 2008 based on data from the Comscore MMX service. The official start to the holiday shopping season unleashed droves of Americans on retail sites, propelling several categories, including Toys, Consumer Electronics and Department Stores, to double-digit traffic gains in November.
“The current economic situation has caused retailers to slash prices and offer highly attractive offers, such as free shipping, to appeal to cost-conscious Americans this holiday season,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of Comscore MMX. “With budgets a top concern for consumers, the ability to conveniently search the Web to find the best prices has become an increasingly important part of the holiday shopping buying process, for both online and offline purchases.”
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.
TABLE 1
Comscore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)November 2008 vs. October 2008Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Oct-08
Nov-08
% Change
Rank by Unique Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience
190,616
190,775
0
N/A
BLACKFRIDAY.INFO
348
5,516
1,486
209
SHOPLOCAL.COM
5,520
12,231
122
91
Best Buy Sites
12,736
22,740
79
40
Toysrus Sites
9,320
15,376
65
66
Sears Sites
15,460
24,500
58
35
Delta Airlines
3,771
5,872
56
197
The Mozilla Organization
13,946
20,192
45
Wal-Mart
33,038
47,373
43
15
PriceGrabber
3,560
5,101
230
Circuit City Stores, Inc.
10,819
15,378
42
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in November 2008
TABLE 2
Comscore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)November 2008 vs. October 2008Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Coupons
27,101
35,649
32
Retail - Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories
15,362
19,210
25
Retail - Toys
25,195
31,296
24
Retail - Mall
30,742
37,002
20
Retail - Department Stores
66,441
79,933
Retail - Consumer Electronics
47,788
55,786
17
Retail - Home Furnishings
39,852
44,965
13
Retail - Music
18,812
21,023
12
Online Gambling
14,588
16,132
11
Retail - Food
17,309
19,049
10
TABLE 3
Comscore Top 50 Properties (U.S.) November 2008Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsUnique Visitors (000)Source: Comscore MMX
Rank
Property
Unique Visitors
(000)
1
Google Site
146,941
26
Verizon Communications Corporation
28,459
2
Yahoo! Sites
143,856
27
Superpages.com Network
27,893
3
Microsoft Sites
123,537
28
Bank of America
25,875
4
AOL LLC
108,785
29
Everyday Health
25,367
5
Fox Interactive Media
89,000
30
AT&T, Inc.
24,958
6
eBay
71,730
31
WordPress
24,780
7
Ask Network
70,151
United Online, Inc
24,644
8
Amazon Sites
63,470
33
Shopzilla.com Sites
24,618
9
Wikimedia Foundation Sites
60,667
34
Weatherbug Property
24,579
Glam Media
54,631
CBS Corporation
52,837
36
Gorilla Nation
24,371
Turner Network
51,682
37
Answers.com Sites
23,469
FACEBOOK.COM
50,511
38
Photobucket.com LLC
23,426
14
Apple Inc.
48,995
39
Real.com Network
22,958
16
New York Times Digital
47,372
41
Demand Media
22,537
Viacom Digital
46,963
JPMorgan Chase Property
22,158
18
Target Corporation
39,143
ESPN
21,678
19
craigslist, inc.
35,666
44
Gannett Sites
21,272
AT&T Interactive Network
35,552
21
Adobe Sites
34,707
46
Monster Worldwide
20,142
22
Weather Channel, The
32,385
47
iVillage.com: The Womens Network
19,808
23
Comcast Corporation
32,013
48
WorldNow - ABC Owned Sites
18,571
Time Warner - Excluding AOL
30,655
49
WebMD Health
18,270
Disney Online
29,432
50
JCPenney Sites
18,079
TABLE 4
Unique Visitors (000)
Reach %
Platform-A**
173,155
Centro - Potential Reach
77,207
40%
Yahoo! Network**
164,535
MYSPACE.COM*
75,328
39%
Google Ad Network**
159,387
Undertone Networks**
75,027
ValueClick Networks**
157,444
Vibrant Media**
73,748
Specific Media**
151,386
NNN Total Newspapers: U.S.
73,231
38%
Traffic Marketplace**
142,510
37%
Yahoo!
142,007
Gorilla Nation Media - Potential Reach
67,972
36%
Tribal Fusion**
141,412
IAC Ad Solutions - Potential Reach
65,098
34%
24/7 Real Media**
139,189
Kontera**
60,982
32%
Google
138,870
Pulse 360**
57,733
30%
Casale Media - MediaNet**
137,371
MSN.COM Home Page
57,622
Adconion Media Group**
136,625
EBAY.COM
56,775
Tremor Media - Potential Reach
134,949
IB Local Network
55,438
29%
interCLICK**
128,033
Revenue Science**
126,600
AMAZON.COM
54,223
28%
DRIVEpm**
123,082
TattoMedia**
52,376
27%
Collective Media**
118,796
NNN Top 25
50,836
CPX Interactive**
115,129
YuMe Video Network - Potential Reach
50,798
MSN-Windows Live
111,610
26%
Turn, Inc**
111,227
ITN Digital Networks - Potential Reach
48,554
25%
ADSDAQ by ContextWeb**
110,338
Ybrant - Oridian - ADdynamix Network**
48,099
AOL Media Network
Business.com Network
46,487
24%
Burst Media**
105,989
QuadrantONE - Potential Reach
44,482
23%
AdBrite**
88,203
WALMART.COM
43,940
YOUTUBE.COM
80,406
Intergi - Potential Reach
43,406
Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that viewed a particular entity at least once in November. For instance, Yahoo! was seen by 74 percent of the nearly 191 million Internet users in November.
* Entity has assigned some portion of traffic to other syndicated entities.
** Denotes an advertising network.
About Comscore MMX
Comscore MMX provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. Comscore MMX reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. Comscore MMX syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About Comscore Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
Contact:Sarah RadwanickDirector, Regional Product MarketingComscore, Inc. +44 (0) 20 7099 1784worldpress@comscore.com