ColumbiaHouse.com, Fingerhut.com and OverStock.com were the three fastest growing e-tailers for the 2001 holiday season, based on total shopping trips to the sites according to audience measurement firm Nielsen//NetRatings.
Continuity club marketer Columbia House's online arm easily outdistanced the pack in terms of growth with more than 25.38 million visits during November and December, compared with nearly 8 million for that period in 2000. This was an increase of 219 percent.
Trips to Fingerhut.com, the Web site of low- to mid-income household-focused cataloger Fingerhut Cos., rose from 3.3 million in November and December 2000 to 8 million in those two months in 2001, an increase of 144 percent.
During the same periods, business-to-consumer clearance marketer OverStock.com saw holiday shopping visits to its site go from 6.2 million to almost 12.9 million, a 107 percent increase.
Consumer electronics marketers saw spikes in growth as well, with OfficeDepot.com going from 5.2 million shopping visits in November and December 2000 to a little more than 10 million in the same period for 2001.
Nielsen//NetRatings ranked the following as Nos. 5 through 10 among the fastest growing e-tailers:
· Apple.com with 17.6 million visitors during November and December 2001 compared with 10.3 million for that period in 2000.
· BestBuy.com with 22.4 million visitors in November and December 2001, up from 13.7 million.
· HP.com with 26 million visitors, up from 17 million.
· Staples.com with 8.5 million visitors, up from 5.6 million.
· Amazon.com with nearly 199 million visitors, up from 133 million. Amazon.com's numbers include ToysRus.com traffic.
· CircuitCity.com with 8.95 million visitors, up from 6.3 million.
Also, post-holiday shopping tapered off more slowly this year than last as bargain hunters looked to take advantage of after-Christmas sales, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Shopping trips to the top e-tailers declined 16 percent from the week ending Dec. 23 to the week ending Dec. 30, compared with a 27 percent decline a year ago.
To reach its figures, Nielsen//NetRatings claims to monitor the Web surfing behavior of 233,000 people in 29 countries and extrapolate.
