Coupon Sites Rise 32 Percent as Tough Economy Sends Americans Searching for Deals
RESTON, VA, December 16, 2008 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for November 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The official start to the holiday shopping season unleashed droves of Americans on retail sites, propelling several categories, including Toys, Consumer Electronics and Department Stores, to double-digit traffic gains in November.
“The current economic situation has caused retailers to slash prices and offer highly attractive offers, such as free shipping, to appeal to cost-conscious Americans this holiday season,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “With budgets a top concern for consumers, the ability to conveniently search the Web to find the best prices has become an increasingly important part of the holiday shopping buying process, for both online and offline purchases.”
Retail Category Traffic Soars as Holiday Shopping Season Gets Underway
Retailing dominated the top-gaining categories ranking for November as eager Americans went online in search of the holiday gifts and deals. Retail – Toys grew 24 percent to 31.3 million visitors during the month, led by Toysrus Sites with 15.4 million visitors (up 65 percent), Barbie with nearly 4 million visitors (up 15 percent), and KB Toys with 2.6 million visitors (up 119 percent).
Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals spurred growth at Retail – Department Stores, which soared 20 percent to 80 million visitors during November. Walmart.com captured the top position in the category with 44 million visitors, an increase of 50 percent from October. Target Corporation rose 26 percent to more than 39 million visitors, followed by JCPenney Sites with 18 million visitors (up 39 percent) and Sears.com with 16 million visitors (up 76 percent).
With hot electronic items like the Nintendo Wii, iPods and Garmin navigation systems appearing on holiday gift lists, the Retail – Consumer Electronics category increased 17 percent to 55.8 million visitors. BestBuy.com led the category with nearly 20 million visitors, a gain of 66 percent from the previous month. Circuit City Stores, Inc. followed in second with 15.4 million visitors (up 42 percent), while Walmart Electronics captured the #3 position, more than doubling to 9.5 million visitors.
Deal Hunting Fuels Traffic to Coupon Sites
Coupon sites ranked as the top-gaining category in November, surging 32 percent to 35.6 million visitors, as an uncertain economy and holiday deal searching led many Americans to seek coupons during the month. Eversave.com led the category with 8.6 million visitors (up 20 percent from the previous month). BlackFriday.info also saw strong gains, jumping nearly 1,500 percent to 5.5 million visitors in November, as eager shoppers planned their Black Friday purchases.
Top 50 Properties
Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in November with 147 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with nearly 144 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 123.5 million visitors. The holiday shopping season caused several retailers to gain in the ranking including, Amazon Sites (up one spot to #8 with 63.5 million visitors), Wal-Mart (up seven spots to #15 with 47.4 million visitors) and Target Corporation (up six spots to #18 with more than 39 million visitors).
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Platform-A led the November Ad Focus ranking reaching 91 percent of the 190.8 million Americans online. Yahoo! Network followed reaching 86 percent and Google Ad Network captured the third position reaching 84 percent of Americans online. Traffic Marketplace moved up two spots to the sixth position reaching 75 percent of online visitors, while MSN-Windows Live jumped four spots to #19 reaching 59 percent of Americans.
TABLE 1
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)
November 2008 vs. October 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Oct-08 Nov-08 % Change Rank
by Unique
Visitors
Total Internet: Total Audience 190,616 190,775 0 N/A
BLACKFRIDAY.INFO 348 5,516 1,486 209
SHOPLOCAL.COM 5,520 12,231 122 91
Best Buy Sites 12,736 22,740 79 40
Toysrus Sites 9,320 15,376 65 66
Sears Sites 15,460 24,500 58 35
Delta Airlines 3,771 5,872 56 197
The Mozilla Organization 13,946 20,192 45 45
Wal-Mart 33,038 47,373 43 15
PriceGrabber 3,560 5,101 43 230
Circuit City Stores, Inc. 10,819 15,378 42 65
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*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in November 2008
TABLE 2
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)
November 2008 vs. October 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Oct-08 Nov-08 % Change
Total Internet: Total Audience 190,616 190,775 0
Coupons 27,101 35,649 32
Retail - Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories 15,362 19,210 25
Retail – Toys 25,195 31,296 24
Retail – Mall 30,742 37,002 20
Retail - Department Stores 66,441 79,933 20
Retail - Consumer Electronics 47,788 55,786 17
Retail - Home Furnishings 39,852 44,965 13
Retail – Music 18,812 21,023 12
Online Gambling 14,588 16,132 11
Retail – Food 17,309 19,049 10
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About comScore Media Metrix
comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo. 
