August Internet Buying Rebounds from Summer
Slowdown
Amazon.com, buy.com and barnesandnoble.com attract largest number of buyers
among U.S. households, Drugstore sites exhibit strong sales
Reston, VA (Sep. 14, 1999) — U.S. consumer buying on Internet retail sites
rebounded in August after a slight decline in July, according to PC Data Online, a leading
Internet research firm specializing in web commerce measurement. PC Data Online's latest
figures for web purchasing among U.S. households show that an average of 4.5 percent of
visitors to the top 40 online retail sites purchased items in August, returning to June
levels after dropping to 3.2 percent in July.
Leading online retailer amazon.com retained its #1 rank with 789,000 projected
home-based buyers. Buy.com jumped to the #2 position with a projected 314,000 visitors
completing purchases. In August, buyers accounted for 12.1 percent of the buy.com's
home-based traffic, up from 6.7 percent in July, while overall traffic increased by more
than 50 percent. Barnesandnoble.com ranked third with 289,000 projected buyers.
Drugstore sites had another strong showing in August, with planetrx.com,
drugstore.com, and mothernature.com among the top 10 buying sites. More than one out of 10
visitors to these drugstore sites bought something during the month of August.
"Consumers are embracing the Internet as a way to buy products that don't
require hands-on evaluation. We've seen this with the success of Internet book and CD
sales, and it appears that the drugstore sites have tapped this same vein. In addition,
consumers love a deal, and the steep discounts and coupons these sites have been offering
to attract customers may have a lot to do with their recent popularity," said
Internet research analyst Cameron Meierhoefer.
Internet retail sites are defined as web sites where visitors can actually
purchase products. They include neither shopping domains that provide free downloads,
product reviews, or purchasing incentives such as coupons, nor other types of e-commerce
sites such as auction, travel reservation, or financial service sites.
PC Data Online estimates the purchase rate based on the number of unique
home-based web users who visit a transaction-related page within each site. The
information is gathered through a proprietary software tool that tracks "unique
visitors" and "unique buyers" on each web site. Every visitor or buyer is
counted only once, regardless of how many times the individual visits a site or buys from
a site. This sample includes 67,000 home Internet users. The total universe of home
Internet users is approximately 63,000,000, including AOL users, which PC Data Online
began tracking in August 1999.
Aggregate Top 40 Web Retail Purchase Rate Among U.S. Home Web Users
June - August 1999
| |
Projected E-tail
Buyers (000) |
E-tail Unique
Users (000) |
Buy Rate (%) |
| August 1999 |
3,382 |
74,786 |
4.52% |
| July 1999 |
2,386 |
74,483 |
3.20% |
| June 1999 |
3,309 |
74,275 |
4.46% |
Top 40 Web Retailers Among U.S. Home Web Users
August 1999
| E-tailer Rank |
Average Time Spent |
| August |
July |
Site |
Projected
Buyers
(000) |
Reach
(%) |
Unique
Users
(000) |
Buy
Rate
(%) |
Buyer
(hh:mm) |
Non-Buyer
(hh:mm) |
| 1 |
1 |
amazon.com |
789 |
17.6% |
11,162 |
7.1% |
0:53 |
0:12 |
| 2 |
9 |
buy.com |
314 |
4.1% |
2,586 |
12.1% |
0:59 |
0:11 |
| 3 |
5 |
barnesandnoble.com |
289 |
6.1% |
3,871 |
7.5% |
0:49 |
0:06 |
| 4 |
3 |
ticketmaster.com |
269 |
3.4% |
2,139 |
12.6% |
0:33 |
0:08 |
| 5 |
2 |
planetrx.com |
256 |
2.6% |
1,655 |
15.5% |
0:38 |
0:07 |
| 6 |
6 |
mothernature.com |
241 |
3.0% |
1,910 |
12.6% |
0:32 |
0:06 |
| 7 |
15 |
drugstore.com |
191 |
1.7% |
1,082 |
17.6% |
0:35 |
0:08 |
| 8 |
4 |
gateway.com |
167 |
3.6% |
2,248 |
7.4% |
0:42 |
0:10 |
| 9 |
11 |
cdnow.com |
95 |
8.5% |
5,389 |
1.8% |
1:22 |
0:20 |
| 10 |
14 |
smarterkids.com |
93 |
2.7% |
1,734 |
5.4% |
0:30 |
0:03 |
| 11 |
13 |
chipshot.com |
80 |
0.6% |
382 |
21.0% |
0:12 |
1:00 |
| 12 |
8 |
hallmark.com |
80 |
1.0% |
610 |
13.1% |
0:31 |
0:31 |
| 13 |
16 |
egghead.com |
73 |
2.6% |
1,614 |
4.5% |
0:34 |
0:08 |
| 14 |
19 |
yahoo.com |
67 |
49.8% |
31,497 |
0.2% |
2:20 |
2:41 |
| 15 |
17 |
officemax.com |
65 |
1.6% |
1,030 |
6.3% |
0:21 |
0:10 |
| 16 |
21 |
etoys.com |
57 |
1.7% |
1,101 |
5.2% |
1:10 |
0:10 |
| 17 |
20 |
jcrew.com |
52 |
1.7% |
1,105 |
4.7% |
0:41 |
0:04 |
| 18 |
22 |
spree.com |
52 |
3.4% |
2,155 |
2.4% |
1:32 |
0:17 |
| 19 |
27 |
compaq.com |
51 |
1.9% |
1,227 |
4.2% |
0:22 |
0:16 |
| 20 |
-- |
towerrecords.com |
43 |
0.5% |
290 |
15.0% |
1:11 |
0:07 |
About PC Data
PC Data, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, was established in 1991 and is the
leading provider of technology intelligence. The PC Data Online suite of services was
introduced in 1999 to tack Internet usage, installed software usage, and to provide the
means to conduct rapidly deployed surveys over the Internet.
Contact:
Cameron Meierhoefer
Internet Research Analyst
(703) 435-1025 ext. 162
cmeierhoefer@pcdata.com
http://www.pcdataonline.com
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