September's Top Internet Retailers
Internet retailing shook off its summer slumber and looks ready for the holiday shopping bonanza, according to the September E-retailing Report from PC Data.
Internet retailing shook off its summer slumber and looks ready for the holiday shopping bonanza, according to the September E-retailing Report from PC Data.
The September E-tailing Report from PC Data showed that shoppers visited Internet retail sites in mass during the month, producing a record number of buyers at major sites and pushing leader Amazon.com over the 1 million home-based buyers mark for the month.
PC Data’s September figures indicate that 17 of the top 20 retail sites posted significant increases in projected buyers over August. This suggests that consumers, growing more comfortable with buying on the Internet, flooded back into the Web retail market after what was viewed as a relatively slow summer.
Projected E-tail Buyers (000) | E-tail Unique Users | Buy Rate (%) | |
---|---|---|---|
September 1999 | 4,768 | 103,462 | 4.61 |
August 1999 | 3,382 | 74,786 | 4.52 |
July 1999 | 2,386 | 74,483 | 3.20 |
June 1999 | 3,309 | 74,275 | 4.46 |
Source: PC Data Online |
Figures from PC Data show that Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, Buy.com, and Ticketmaster.com reclaimed their positions as the top five Web retailers, while drugstore.com replaced Planetrx.com on the list. Newcomers to the list were Gap.com and enews.com. Gap rose 13 slots to the No. 14 rank, as a result of a tripling in its projected buyers. Enews.com jumped to No. 8 on the chart, after more than quadrupling buyers for magazine subscriptions.
“September belonged to Amazon.com,” said Cameron Meierhoefer, Internet Research Analyst at PC Data Online. “It had more buyers than its three biggest competitors combined, confirming itself as the undisputed powerhouse in online retailing. At the same time, growth for all top 20 Web retailers was across the board, and this only strengthens the outlook for Internet retailers going into this holiday season.”
According to Meierhoefer, the slow down in online retail buying during the summer was seasonal, and that October figures should confirm the continued rapid growth in online buying.
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.
Top 20 E-Tailers of September 1999 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rank | Site | Projected No. of Purchasers (000) |
Reach (%) |
Unique Users (000) |
Purchase Rate (%) |
||
1. | amazon.com | 1,097 | 19.1 | 12,256 | 9.0 | ||
2. | drugstore.com | 362 | 2.9 | 1,860 | 19.5 | ||
3. | barnesandnoble.com | 347 | 6.7 | 4,298 | 8.1 | ||
4. | buy.com | 316 | 3.8 | 2,423 | 13.0 | ||
5. | ticketmaster.com | 282 | 4.1 | 2,639 | 10.7 | ||
6. | hallmark.com | 169 | 0.4 | 914 | 18.4 | ||
7. | mothernature.com | 164 | 2.3 | 1,502 | 10.9 | ||
8. | enews.com | 153 | 4.6 | 2,947 | 5.2 | ||
9. | planetrx.com | 151 | 2.1 | 1,366 | 11.0 | ||
10. | gateway.com | 146 | 3.4 | 2,198 | 6.7 | ||
11. | cdnow.com | 143 | 10.2 | 6,545 | 2.2 | ||
12. | chipshot.com | 112 | 0.7 | 446 | 25.2 | ||
13. | beyond.com | 105 | 4.3 | 2,741 | 3.8 | ||
14. | gap.com | 101 | 1.5 | 970 | 10.4 | ||
15. | bigstar.com | 100 | 2.0 | 1,275 | 7.8 | ||
16. | dvdexpress.com | 84 | 0.9 | 601 | 14.0 | ||
17. | yahoo.com | 81 | 56.6 | 36,254 | 0.2 | ||
18. | officemax.com | 71 | 1.6 | 1,044 | 6.8 | ||
19. | etoys.com | 69 | 2.2 | 1,403 | 4.9 | ||
20. | staples.com | 69 | 1.1 | 711 | 9.7 | ||
Source: PC Data Online |