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The holiday season’s sixth week, ended December 4, accounted for 33 percent more online shopping trips than the corresponding week a year ago, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings Holiday eShopping Index, which comprises some 100 representative online retailers across 10 categories, MarketingVox reports. Last year, the index showed shoppers visiting retail sites 348.3 million times during the week; this year, the number increased to 462.5 million.
The week’s fastest-growing category was Books/Music/Video, with the number of shopping visits increasing a whopping 238 percent from last year. Apparel was second with a 38 percent increase; Toys/Video Games, Home and Garden, and Retail each had 28 percent growth, and Consumer Electronics visits increased 27 percent.
In the first six weeks of the 2005 holiday season, the Holiday eShopping Index increased 39 percent - i.e., comparing week 1 (ended Oct. 30) with week 6 (ended Dec. 4).
Search has become a mainstay for consumers to shop, whether they ultimately purchase online, through a catalog, or at the retail level, according to DM News. The keyword “Xbox 360″ was used in 5 million searches, more than tripling those for Sony’s PlayStation. “Harry Potter” generated 4.8 million searches, “Star Wars” 2.5 million, and Barbie 2.1 million.
Electronic retailers like Circuit City and Best Buy are asking consumers in their advertising to go online to research products before coming in the stores, according to AdAge. Ken Cassar, analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings, said that at crowded stores it’s difficult for sales reps to answer all the questions from customers, “so the better informed a customer is coming into the store, the better it is for them.”
Though off-air online and experiential advertising grew modestly as a part of the overall radio revenue pie, and election-related political ads increased in Q3, total radio ad revenues were down 9% to $4.97 billion for Q3 and down 10% for…
Glamour magazine is running its photo of Britney Spears not only on the cover of the U.S. edition, but on the covers in seven other countries, as well.
Britney will grace Russia, Sweden and Greece’s editions of Glamour, among others.…
Titan Worldwide has signed a five-year deal with the Delaware River Port Authority to manage out-of-home advertising for the Port Authority Transit corp.
The contract covers advertising on PATCO’s rail service and stations between Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, writes Mediaweek.…
Publicis has acquired full-service agency W&K Communications, continuing its Asia expansion that began several years ago.
W&K will be pulled under the umbrella of Publicis’s Burnett agency network, and will be renamed Leo Burnett Beijing Advertising, writes Adweek.
Other recent Publicis…
With only four weeks separating Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, Cyber Monday One (December 1) and Cyber Monday Two (December 
may command a greater share of online sales than they have in years past - thus increasing the importance…
Top American non-luxury auto brands received higher ratings and less negative comments from online consumers than competing Japanese brands, according to an analysis of consumer opinions collected from automotive review websites by Biz360, MarketingCharts reports.
The research, which aggregated a year’s…
