Comparison Shopping Soars; Amazon, Wal-Mart Still Dominate E-Tail

By Evan Schuman | Posted 2007-11-11

About 56 percent more comparison shopping inquiries were the made the first week of November this year compared with the same week last year, according to new figures released this week from Web traffic tracker Hitwise.

The top price-comparison sites, according to Hitwise, were Yahoo Shopping (20 percent), Smarter.com (15 percent) and Bizrate (14 percent), Hitwise said. The top retailers who enjoyed the traffic from those sites were Amazon, eBay, Target, Overstock.com, Wal-Mart and JCPenney.

Some other bits of trivia from the report:

The leading product search terms driving traffic to the comparison shopping Web sites were laptop computers, Nintendo Wii, LCD TV, digital cameras, iPods, and Xbox360 for the four weeks ending Nov. 3, 2007.

The product term “wii” was the most searched product, followed by the “uggs” and “xbox 360.”

Shopzilla experienced the biggest increase in traffic among visitors aged 45-plus, with a 58 percent gain for the week ending Nov. 3, 2007, compared to the same week last year. NexTag saw a 48 percent increase in traffic while YahooShopping received a 46 percent increase for the same week.

Amazon.com remained the most visited Web site, receiving 11.34 percent of visits. Wal-Mart received the second largest number of visits with 6.34 percent. Wal-Mart was the biggest gainer, as its traffic increased 24 percent compared to the previous week.

Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman can be reached at Evan.Schuman@ziffdavisenterprise.com.

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