Consumers are still shopping for the holidays, naturally, although in more moderation than last year. Given the state of the economy, that certainly was expected. But what is surprising is that recent research by Hitwise shows that visits to comparison shopping engines is down. The good news? Online coupon use is up.
Heather Dougherty, director of research for Hitwise, says, “For the week ending Dec. 13, 2008, the market share of visits to the Retail 500 represented 4.28 percent of all internet visits, down 6 percent from the same week last year (week ending De. 15, 2007). The Web sites of the brick-and-mortar retailers were impacted the most again last week, with visits declining 8 percent, while visits to the Web-only retail category were flat year-over-year.
“The real surprise is that the visits to comparison shopping tools have been down throughout the holiday season as compared to last year, a category that should be well-positioned to help shoppers save money. Instead, many are opting to seek out deals directly from the retailers on coupon Web sites, driving up the market share of visits 25 percent as compared to last year, while comparison shopping tools dropped 15 percent during the same time frame.”
Consumers are increasingly aware of the coupon and promotion codes that are available online, causing searches for coupons to surge, says Dougherty. Last week, according to Hitwise, searches for generic coupons (no inclusion of brand) jumped 172 percent from the same week last year and searches for retailer-specific coupons increased 34 percent.
During the busy weeks of Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, searches for retailer-specific reached their highest share of searches in the past three years, says Dougherty. “Another driver of growth is likely to be the disparaging news in the media about declines in retail sales and plenty of coverage about the need for heavy promotional activity to drive sales. Shoppers may be pulling back spending, but they still love a bargain.”
The growth of the coupon Web sites is significant due to their role as an effective driver of traffic to online retailers, says Dougherty. Last week, 24 percent of the traffic from the coupon Web sites visited the Retail 500 and 13 percent visited the Retail Chain 100 (a subset of the Retail 500 which includes the Web sites of brick & mortar retailers), according to Hitwise.
“Much of this traffic can be attributed to the fact that consumers have a few retailers in mind where they would like to make a purchase,” she says, “and then search to find any promotion codes that may be available.”
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