Online shopping trends for Christmas

A recent report on the UK’s online retail market by Hitwise has highlighted the trends in the market, with a particular focus on the build-up to Christmas 2005 so that forecasts can be made about expected activity in 2006.

The Internet traffic monitoring service provided by Hitwise includes a Retail 100 Index in the UK that tracks 100 of the top online retailer sites, based on their share of UK visits in the previous month. Hitwise also report that 10% of every UK Internet visit lands on a site within their Shopping & Classifieds sector, with eBay holding the largest share of visits at 24%, followed by Amazon at 6%.

In the run-up to Christmas last year, Hitwise recorded a 7% growth in market share of UK visits to the Retail 100 Index sites compared to the previous year. This figure has grown by a further 10% in the year to August 2006 which indicates a further growth in the online shopping market for this Christmas period. Interestingly, the peak in traffic last Christmas came a week later than 2004, which may indicate higher confidence in consumers with delivery times and stock availability.

Using their data trends, Hitwise forecast an 8% year-on-year growth in UK traffic to retail sites this Christmas ‘ not dramatic, but a further steady increase on 2005. The peak activity period is expected to be between 9th and 16th December, which is again later than 2005 due to further confidence in delivery times but also the growth on High Street brands on the Internet (as opposed to ‘pure-play’ web retailers) who tend to see later ordering peaks.

The role of search engines in generating online sales continue to grow, with a forecast referral rate of 35% in December this year, compared to 30% in 2005. Google and Yahoo! Search will continue to dominate the search engine share. A new element this year is also the impact of social networking sites, such as MySpace and Bebo, in referring traffic to retail sites. Although only expected to account for 3% of visits, these sites are now a major source of traffic and music retailers are expected to benefit as a result.

If you’d like to know more about this data and how your site could benefit from the Christmas sales period, please contact us for more details.

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