According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, a significant driver of growth to the category was visits to DealsDirect.com.au, which spiked by 62.8% for the week ending December 3, 2005. DealsDirect.com.au offers bargain shopping on a wide range of products from automotive and tools to toys, games, gifts and watches. The Australian website increased its position to the second most popular online Department store, behind only Amazon.com.

DealsDirect.com.au succeeded in overtaking Amazon UK (www.amazon.co.uk) for the first time, indicating a desire by Australian Internet users to shop at local online properties. Visits to local websites in Shopping and Classifieds – Department Stores were up 25.9% compared to the same week last year.

Kmart Australia (www.kmart.com.au) also contributed to growth in Department Stores online for the week, jumping from 6^th to 4^th position and has been steadily increasing its market share by 25.5% from week ending October 1, 2005. Traditional retailers in Australia still have some way to go however in occupying the Internet shopping landscape, demonstrated by the fact that the top 3 department stores online are pure players. Recent online US trends show that bricks and mortar stores are fighting back, where Hitwise observed that Walmart.com had surpassed Amazon.com in market share of visits for the first time on Thanksgiving.

Search term analysis from Hitwise indicates that ‘mp3 players’, ‘mobile phones’ and ‘exercise equipment’ were amongst the Top 10 search terms that resulted in successful visits to DealsDirect.com.au for the 12 weeks ending December 3, 2005.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about the Hitwise Competitive Intelligence service is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis on online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.