FOOL PLATE SPECIAL
Where did you do your shopping over the holiday 2000 season? If you did it online, chances are some of it was done at Amazon.com, which for the second year in a row was the Web's strongest magnet for shoppers during the holidays. But the most impressive number belongs to Wal-Mart, which sports a growth rate big enough to make a dot-com blush.
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Amazon leads the traffic jam
The average number of daily visitors to Amazon.com reached 1.6 million during the five-week period ending Dec. 24, a 48% increase over the 1.1 million counted during the comparable period one year earlier. So says a study released last week by the Web-measuring division of Jupiter Media Metrix. Overall, an average of 34.3 million unique individuals visited retail sites during the holiday shopping season, an increase of 30.3% over 1999. Total Web usage, it should be noted, grew only 18.6% during the same period.
Also worth pointing out is that in 1999 about 51.8% of unique weekly Web users visited a retail site during the holiday season, a number that increased to 56.9% during holiday 2000. Not only are more people doing more shopping online, but the Amazon brand is one of the main beneficiaries as e-commerce goes mainstream. Overall Traffic to the Web and Retail Sites
1999 and 2000 Holiday Shopping Seasons
Average Weekly Unique Visitors
All WWW Retail Sites % Retail
1999 Holiday Season* 50,746,000 26,303,000 51.8%
2000 Holiday Season* 60,173,000 34,265,000 56.9%
% Change 18.6% 30.3% 9.8%
* 1999 Holiday Season: weeks ending 11/28/99 through 12/26/00
2000 Holiday Season: weeks ending 11/26/99 through 12/24/00
Source: Media Metrix
Pure-play growers and shrinkers
As impressive as Amazon's year-over-year growth was, other online pure-plays showed even steeper gains. Comparison shopping site BizRate.com ranked as the fifth-most-visited retail site, with a 64.5% gain in average daily visitors. Online direct marketer MyPoints.com (Nasdaq: MYPT) saw a 60.7% increase in traffic volume, keeping it in the number two slot, well within clicking distance of Amazon. As the table below shows, the dominance of Amazon and MyPoints is evident by the gap between their visitor volume and that of the sites directly under them in the Media Metrix holiday ranking.
Showing up in the top 10 for the first time were greeting card site AmericanGreetings.com at number three with 538,000 average daily unique visitors, and eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) Half.com, with an average of 511,000 uniques. Even BizRate's strong growth was only enough to draw 510,000 average daily visitors to its site.
Not faring as well were online mall Buy.com (Nasdaq: BUYX) and eToys (Nasdaq: ETYS). The two were neck-and-neck during the 1999 holiday season, ranking fourth and fifth among retail sites, respectively. They now strain their necks in the number nine and 10 positions, their year-over-year-traffic volumes having dropped 9.2% and 8.3%, respectively.
eToys' change in fortune was reflected in its mid-December warning that it would miss revenue and earnings estimates, which was followed up in January with layoffs, warehouse closings, and hints that the company itself may soon be on the block. On a similar note, the top 10 holiday retail sites no longer finds shelf-space for barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN). Number eight on 1999's list, the company just yesterday warned that Q4 earnings will not live up to expectations. All in all, it was a sobering reminder that traffic flowing to a website does not automatically translate into dollars flowing through a balance sheet. Top 10 Retail Sites, Unique Visitors
1999 and 2000 Holiday Shopping Seasons
Site Avg. Visitors Site Avg. Visitors
Holiday 1999* Holiday 2000*
AMAZON.COM 1,071,000 AMAZON.COM 1,583,000
MYPOINTS.COM 869,000 MYPOINTS.COM 1,391,000
WEBSTAKES.COM 433,000 AMERICANGREETINGS.COM 538,000
BUY.COM 348,000 HALF.COM 511,000
ETOYS.COM 338,000 BIZRATE.COM 510,000
BIZRATE.COM 310,000 WEBSTAKES.COM 446,000
TOYSRUS.COM 294,000 WALMART.COM 370,000
BARNESANDNOBLE.COM 286,000 CDNOW.COM 320,000
CDNOW.COM 277,000 BUY.COM 316,000
EGREETINGS.COM 219,000 ETOYS.COM 310,000
* Five-Week period ending 12/26/99 and 12/24/00
Source: Media Metrix
Bricks click
But what stands out most in these Media Metrix numbers is the increase in shopper traffic to the websites of traditional offline brands such as Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Sears (NYSE: S), Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS), and most especially Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). The website of the number-one U.S. retailer only ranked seventh in average daily visitors during the holiday 2000 period, but Walmart.com's 370,000 shoppers represented a whopping 640% increase over the 50,000 of the previous year.
Visitors to BestBuy.com jumped more than 200%. Also representing bricks-and-mortar in the top 10 were Staples.com and Sears.com, whose visitor growth of 134.8% and 95.9%, respectively, demonstrate that the dot-com pure-plays have miles to go before resting on their e-laurels. Top 10 Gaining Retail Sites, Unique Visitors
1999 and 2000 Holiday Shopping Seasons
5-Week Avg. 5-Week Avg.
Rank Site 1999* 2000* % Increase
1 WALMART.COM 50,000 370,000 640.0%
2 MYSIMON.COM 88,000 283,000 222.0%
3 BESTBUY.COM 82,000 249,000 203.2%
4 AMERICANGREETINGS.COM 216,000 538,000 149.1%
5 DEALTIME.COM 74,000 175,000 137.0%
6 STAPLES.COM 50,000 117,000 134.8%
7 HALLMARK.COM 97,000 218,000 124.3%
8 SEARS.COM 107,000 210,000 95.9%
9 800.COM 68,000 114,000 67.1%
10 BIZRATE.COM 310,000 510,000 64.6%
* Five-Week period ending 12/26/99 and 12/24/00
Source: Media Metrix
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