Traffic and User Reports For Ten Shopping Engines

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:33:00 GMT

Google is facing a crisis. Its users keep leaving and patronizing other sites, not in the sense of where search users begin their initial search, but where those search users go after they conduct a query at Google. So where are they going? Increasingly, shoppers are going to vertical sites and in the case of e-commerce they are going to shopping engines. Let's look at traffic and user reports for ten of the more popular shopping engines. While it might be a little late to reap the rewards these vertical shopping engines provide this holiday season, it might be time to start planning your e-commerce marketing strategy for '09.

BizRate.com: Compete.com ranks bizrate.com #38 with over 20.8 million people visiting in November. (Alexa ranking for Shopzilla is 560.) Similar traffic numbers are reported by Quantcast (21.4 million) which also reveals that the site's demographics skew older (63% are over 35 years of age), 70% have no children, and are more affluent with 57% earning over $60K (household income). Quantcast also indicates that "passers-by" comprise nearly 80% of the site's audience. According to Alexa, 77% of BizRate traffic comes from the United States.

Shopzilla.com: Compete.com ranks Shopzilla.com #67 with nearly 13 million people visiting in November. (Alexa ranking for Shopzilla is 1152.) Similar traffic numbers are reported by Quantcast (14 million), which also reveals that the site's demographics skew older (62% are over 35 years of age), 70% have no children, and are more affluent, with 57% earning over $60K (household income). Quantcast reported that "passers-by" comprised 84% of the site's audience. The similarities between BizRate and Shopzilla may be due to Shopzilla owning and operating BizRate. Alexa reports that just over 83% of Shopzilla traffic comes from the United States.

PriceGrabber.com: Compete ranks PriceGrabber.com #192 with nearly 5.75 million visitors in November. (PriceGrabber's Alexa ranking is 1,194.) Quantcast reports an estimated 4.7 million people in the U.S. and that nearly 30% of users were in the coveted 18-34 age group. A majority of the site's traffic comes from the US (74.5%), and users gravitated towards electronics, computers and cameras. Interesting to note that the site attracts a predominantly more educated group and is male biased (55%). Traffic for the year is down according to Quantcast, but November saw a nearly 42% increase in traffic over October.

DealTime.com: Traffic was down nearly 60% for DealTime.com this year with only 2.8 million people visiting in November according to Compete.com (down from nearly 10 million in May and June of '08). Compete and Alexa ranked DealTime 488 and 2,133 respectively. Just over half of DealTime's traffic comes from the U.S. with other users coming from the U.K. (9.4%), France (8.8%) and Germany (5.7%). Well-over 90% of DealTime's visitors are "passers-by".

Smarter.com: While traffic is down 15% from its January '08 high of nearly fourteen million visitors, Smarter.com still pulls in 10.4 million visitors monthly according to Compete. Alexa and Compete ranked Smarter.com #1,786 and #93 respectively. A vast majority (81%) of Smarter.com's traffic comes from the US, and 86% of the site's traffic are designated as "passers-by". The site appeals to a less affluent, slightly older, and more female audience.

MySimon.com: Compete.com ranks MySimon.com #1,216 with just 1.3 million people visiting in November. Traffic was up substantially for the month (30%). Alexa ranks the comparison shopping site MySimon.com at #8,098. The site serves a slightly more affluent, middle aged, Caucasian male with no children.

PriceRunner.com: While Compete.com lists PriceRunner's November traffic with an increase of 20%, its yearly increase of over 435% is what stands out for the shopping comparison engine. Down from its July high of nearly 3 million visitors (November numbers are just over 1.7 million), the site was trending up going into the holiday season. Alexa and Compete rank PriceRunner at #4,090 and #880 respectively. A Quantcast profile of PriceRunner reveals that the gender makeup is mixed, and visitors are older, but it features more visitors of other ethnicities than average. PriceRunner is very popular in Sweden and Denmark (in addition to the U.S.), with nearly 40% and just over 10% of its traffic coming from those countries respectively.

Pronto.com: A web service of IAC (which owns Ask.com), Pronto continues its steady rise in the e-commerce industry with over 11 million monthly visitors. Compete and Alexa ranked the site #80 and #1,1416 respectively. Nearly 80% of Pronto's traffic comes from the US with just over 7.5% coming from Canada, according to Alexa. According to Quantcast, the site attracts a less affluent audience with no college education (51%).

TheFind.com: Shopping search TheFind.com had a stellar year in traffic with an over 1000% increase in monthly visitors. (November numbers according to Compete were nearly 2.73 million.) Traffic rank for TheFind.com according to Compete and Alexa is #520 and #2,465 respectively. The site attracts a more affluent, slightly more female than male, more educated audience.

Nextag.com: Perhaps the mother of all comparison shopping sites, Nextag secured a whopping 38.3 million visitors in November (according to Compete.com), and you can expect its December numbers to at least meet or exceed that level. While its unique visitor trend chart looks much like a very scary roller-coaster, it is and has remained a very competitive force in e-commerce for many years. Alexa and Compete rank Nextag #475 and #17 respectively.

'Net Features : smarter, ecommerce

Traffic and User Reports For Ten Shopping Engines