October Desktop Traffic Trends: Retail Sites Gain Momentum

November 26, 2013

This article is included in these additional categories:

Digital | Retail & E-Commerce

comScore-Top10-Gaining-Web-Categories-bypercent-change-sep-oct13-Nov2013An increasing number of Americans visited retail sites last month, likely shopping for Halloween and getting a head start on their holiday purchases, according to the latest data from comScore’s Media Metrix. Retail site categories accounted for 6 of the top-10 fastest-gaining categories for the month, measured by month-over-month change in unique visitors from desktops. Political news sites also saw an uptick in visitors as the government shut down for the first 2-odd weeks of the month; Nielsen previously reported that 54% of active American internet users visited a news site during September.

Returning to the comScore data for October, the retail categories seeing the fastest month-over-month increase in unique visitors were:

  • Mall sites (up 61% to 22.7 million);
  • Flowers, gifts and greetings sites (up 32% to 23.9 million);
  • Toys sites (up 14% to 17.4 million);
  • Fragrances and cosmetics sites (up 12% to 14.1 million);
  • Jewelry, luxury goods, and accessories sites (up 9% to 18.4 million); and
  • Food sites (up 8% to 16 million).

Meanwhile, Yahoo Sites continued to attract a larger desktop audience than Google Sites, though the gap narrowed considerably in October, with the two properties separated by less than 2 million unique visitors, following a gap of more than 6 million in September. After those 2 properties, Microsoft (177.5 million), Facebook (141.4 million) and AOL (120.2 million) maintained their respective positions from the previous month.

There was a change at the top of the syndicated ad focus entity rankings, with AddThis taking over the top spot with 97.2% reach among online Americans. AddThis had a sizable lead over ShareThis (87.6% reach), which itself took over the second spot from Yahoo (86.9%).

Among ad networks and buy-side networks, Google Ad Network retained its top position with 94.9% reach, while Rubicon Project REVV Platform was once again the top DSP/SSP/ad exchange entity, with 96.4% reach.

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