60% of online Aussies did ’09 Xmas shopping on the Net

Online retailers attracted more than 8million Australian visitors during the lead-up to Xmas 2009. That means some 60% of online Aussies were shopping on the Net during December 2009.

Surprisingly, that’s an overall increase of only 3% up on 2008, significantly less than the 11% increase in the total Australian Internet audience over the year.

According to the estimates, from US market researchers, ComScore, the total Australian Internet audience aged 15 years and over as at December 2009 totalled some 13.04million people.

And more than 8.12million visited a retail site during that month,  either from work or at home.

Apple owned sites in the US and elsewhere were said to be far and away the most popular of all the online retail sites Australians visited,  with Amazon a close second.

Australian retailers, Coles and Woolies ranked a distant third and fourth, although visitor numbers at both grew strongly.

Indeed they were up 30% and 48% respectively over the year.

Conversely, the heavily promoted DealsDirect.com.au saw an actual drop in traffic, down 1% on last years figures.

Other highlights from the ComScore numbers included a claim that comparison shopping sites were increasingly popular in December 2009 compared to the same month last year.

eBay owned shopping.com related sites were said to still be the most commonly visited of all of the comparison shopping sites. Unique visitor numbers for December 2009 were estimated as having been up 7% on the previous year.
But visitor numbers to getprice.com.au and myshopping.com.au were said to have grown much more strongly, indeed, by as much as 71% and 69% respectively.

ComScores data estimates excludes visits from public computers, such as those found in Internet cafes.

It isn’t clear whether that means the estimates exclude Internet users at schools, universities, museums, and libraries.

However it seems likely that is the case. So too it seems likely that the estimates are derived from a global study, rather than being collected specifically from and/or in Australia.

To that extent readers should be cautious in interpreting this data. It is only one companys measure and may well differ substantially from estimates made by other market researchers such as Nielsens, or Hitwise, for example.’

Even so it is intriguing to see that Comscore’s estimates show Áustralian’s have become relatively much more interested in shopping for clothes online.

Compared to last December, when apparel shopping sites ranked 6^th in the popularity of  Comscore’s vastious online retail categories, this year it had jumped to 4^th.

Indeed online clothes shopping was only marginally less popular than shopping online for computer software.

Surprisingly, the data also suggested a m 11% drop in visits to online ticketing sites, and only 1% growth in visits to online flowers, gifts and/or greetings card sites.

Last years global financial crisis and changes in consumer behvious might be said to explain both those results.

But equally, they could be used to cast doubt over the accuracy of Comscore’s estimates, and/or the accuracy of its methodology for producing estimates about the behaviour of Australians online.

For more information go to:

www.comscore.com

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