|
Shopping & Classifieds websites attracted more visits than the Travel industry, but less than Business & Finance in October 2007 in all four Hitwise Asia Pacific markets.
Visits to Shopping & Classifieds websites have the strongest presence in New Zealand compared to other Asia Pacific markets. This is likely due to the dominance of a local auction website, Trade Me, which accounted for 50.38% of visits in Shopping & Classifieds in October 2007, and was the second website visited overall in the New Zealand market.
Auction websites also dominated in the remaining three markets, with the following players leading the Shopping & Classifieds industry in October 2007: eBay Australia, with 29.31% market share; Yahoo! Auctions Singapore (6.32%); and Yahoo! Auctions Hong Kong (31.9%).
The remaining top 10 players in each market in October 2007 were typically comprised of pureplays and rewards & directories, with few bricks and mortar retailers appearing. One notable exception was Dick Smith Electronics in the New Zealand market, which ranked at 6th position. Search Engines remain a key source of traffic to Shopping & Classifieds websites in the Australian, New Zealand and Singapore markets, accounting for 29.35%, 29.47% and 23.58% of upstream visits in October 2007 respectively. Email Services was a leading traffic referrer to Shopping & Classifieds websites in the Hong Kong market, accounting for 14.39% of visits.
Lifestyle data in the Australian market indicates that all segments of the population are likely to visit Shopping & Classifieds websites. Sub-categories, such as Apparel & Accessories attract niche groups, namely “Leading Lifestyles” – described as the wealthiest families in the most exclusive suburbs; with an index of 132.32 for the 12 weeks ending 3 November 2007.
During the holiday shopping period last year, visits began to ramp up from mid-October to spike the week ending 25 November 2006 - the overall peak week for Shopping & Classifieds online in 2006. Shoppers who left their Christmas shopping a bit later peaked in visits around the week ending 16 December 2006, with a surge in traffic from procrastinators and post-Christmas day bargain hunters for the week ending 30 December 2006.
An analysis of the product categories that grew during each time point showed that:
Appliances & Electronics, Books, Department Stores, Flowers & Gifts, Grocery & Alcohol and Video & Games achieved significant growth rates for all three time points.
Music, House & Garden and Sport & Fitness attracted last minute shoppers.
Flowers & Gifts had the highest growth rate, with 55%, week ending 16 December 2006.
Grocery & Alcohol spiked by 38% the week ending 16 December 2006, corresponding to the highest volume in searches for ‘hampers’ in 2006.
This section looks at the players that are looking set to benefit from the anticipated growth in consumer visits in key online industries during the Christmas period.
Dick Smith Electronics was the dominant retailer for Appliances & Electronics in both the Australian and New Zealand markets in October 2007; Dick Smith Electronics’ presence in the New Zealand market was particularly strong, accounting for more than 1 in 5 visits.
While consumers typically search for brand names when they visit the Appliances & Electronics industry, with 29 of the top 30 search terms to the industry being branded terms for the 4 weeks ending 27 October 2007 in Australia; an analysis of gadget search terms indicates that the ipod suite of products will perform strongly again online this year, with ‘ipod touch’ amongst the top 10 terms in September 2007.
Half.com, owned by eBay was the leading website in the Books industry in Australia in October 2007, and ranked second in New Zealand.
Australian book retailers have begun to make inroads in leveraging the online channel for holiday shopping. During December 2006 for example, Dymocks was close to matching the average session time of Amazon; an important benchmark in competing for the attention of Christmas shoppers.
Pure-plays dominate the Department Stores industry in Australia and New Zealand, with Amazon taking the top position in both markets in October 2007. DealsDirect.com.au was the leading local brand in the Australian market, while the website of bricks and mortar store, Farmers ranked at 5th position in New Zealand.
|
