HITWISE UK CHRISTMAS SHOPPING UPDATE #1

Kelkoo UK, Pricerunner.com UK, and Shopping.com UK show varying strengths in the lead up to Christmas

London, 15^th November 2005
Comparison shopping sites can be an important source of visits for retailers in the busy Christmas season. In the week ending 12^th November 2005, the Hitwise Rewards and Directories category was the 7^th largest referrer of visits to retail websites, responsible for 1 in 20 visits.

Analysis by Hitwise, the leading provider of online competitive intelligence, reveals that the landscape is changing for comparison shopping sites and that different shopping comparison sites have different strengths.

Among shopping comparison sites, Kelkoo UKaccounts for the largest volume of visits to online retailers. However, Pricerunner.com UKand Shopping.com UKhave posted tremendous gains.

“Shopping comparison sites can be an important source of visits to retailers, particularly in the lead up to Christmas” said Heather Hopkins, Director of Research for Hitwise UK. “Shopping comparison sites have already started to see a seasonal increase in visits with a 7% growth in visits last week. Kelkoo UK remains the most important shopping comparison site, measured by the visits it sends to retail websites. Shopping.com has made tremendous gains in the past year and has become the second largest shopping comparison site, in terms of visits sent to retail websites, up from #21 a year ago.”

The most meaningful way to compare Rewards and Directories websites is in the volume of traffic they send to retail websites. The following table shows the top 10 Rewards and Directories sites in the UK last week, based on the volume of upstream visits to retail websites.

Top 10 upstream Rewards and Directories sites to the 'Shopping and Classifieds' industry in the UK, week ending 12/11/2005

• Kelkoo UK has been the leader among shopping comparison sites over the past year, measured both in the volume of visits the site sends to retailers and the volume of visits the site attracts. Kelkoo UK sends nearly 4 times more traffic to retailers compared with its closest competitor, Pricerunner.com UK.
  
• Shopping.com UK was a new entrant in August 2004 and has enjoyed tremendous gains. The volume of visits the site sends to retailers was seven times higher the week ending 12th November 2005 compared with the week ending 13^th November 2004. The site has also enjoyed gains in the share of visits it attracts, increasing share of visits 772% year-on-year. Shopping.com UK is set to be a major player at Christmas this year, given these significant gains.
  
• Google’s comparison shopping offering, Froogle UK, has also enjoyed healthy growth since its launch last October. The site’s visits were buoyed in the summer of 2005 when a link was added from the highly trafficked Google UK search page. The share of upstream visits that Froogle UK sends to retailers has increased 8 times comparing the weeks ending 12th November 2005 and 13th November 2004.
• While NexTag UK is the fourth largest comparison shopping site in terms of visits sent to retail websites, this is in part due to the large volume of visits sent to its US parent site, www.nextag.com.
  

Appliances and Electronics, Department Stores, and Computers are the top downstream categories from shopping comparison sites. Different comparison shopping sites show different strengths.

While Kelkoo UK sends the largest volume of visits to retail websites, different strengths are evident in the downstream visits from the leading shopping comparison sites. This analysis reveals the relative strengths of these sites. This insight can be used to prioritise which shopping comparison sites to work with.

Volume of visits sent to the Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds category and its sub-categories in the UK, week ending 12/11/2005

• Kelkoo UK’s strengths are in Appliances & Electronics, Books, Department Stores, Video and Games, and Music.
• Pricerunner.com UK’s strengths are in Appliances and Electronics and Computers.
• Shopping.com UK’s strengths are in Auctions, House and Garden, Sport and Fitness and Sport and Fitness.
• DealTime UK’s strengths are in Health and Beauty, House and Garden, Intimate Apparel and Accessories and Toys and Hobbies.

Shopping Comparison Websites receive 42% of visits from searches for retailer brand names. 36% come from generic product searches

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In addition to the Christmas Shopping Series 2005 weekly instalments, Heather Hopkins will provide further retail analyses via her weblog at http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/.

* Growth comparing share of visits the week ending 12^th November and 5^th November 2005

** Does not include stand-alone visits to other eBay sites (eBay.com,  eBay Motors, My eBay)

About Hitwise:

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

By measuring 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 Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.co.uk

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