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22nd January 2008: The most popular and fastest growing retailers at Christmas in the UK as well as the terms most closely discussed in relation to Christmas in the blogosphere are detailed below
- eBay was the most popular retailer online during the 2007 Christmas shopping period - visited by an average of 15 million Britons per month in November and December
- Of the ten most popular retailers, Asda (+68%) and Marks & Spencer (+54%) experienced the strongest audience growth since the 2006 Christmas shopping period
- Three of the five most popular retailers online were pure online players (eBay, Amazon and Play.com) whilst high street retailers accounted for seven of the ten most popular
UKs most popular Christmas retailers online: Nov/Dec 2007
Rank |
Retailer |
Average UK monthly Unique Audience in Nov/Dec 07 (millions) |
Average UK monthly Unique Audience in Nov/Dec 06 (millions) |
% UA increase from Nov/Dec 06 to Nov/Dec 07 |
1 |
eBay |
15.0 |
14.9 |
1% |
2 |
Amazon |
14.0 |
11.4 |
22% |
3 |
Argos |
7.0 |
5.3 |
31% |
4 |
Tesco |
6.7 |
5.9 |
14% |
5 |
Play.com |
4.8 |
3.6 |
34% |
6 |
Marks & Spencer |
3.4 |
2.2 |
54% |
7 |
Currys |
2.9 |
2.2 |
31% |
8 |
John Lewis |
2.8 |
2.1 |
33% |
9 |
HMV |
2.7 |
2.0 |
39% |
10 |
Asda |
2.6 |
1.6 |
68% |
Source: Nielsen Online, UK NetView, home & work data, including applications, Nov/Dec 2006 – Nov/ Dec 2007
e.g. eBay was visited by an average of 15 million Britons per month in November 07 and December 07, 1% more than averaged in November 06 and December 06
Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online, “eBay and Amazon remain, by some distance, the most dominant retailers online. In terms of visitor numbers, however, it tended to be a great Christmas for most retailers online. The top ten retailers, on average, were visited by 33% more people than they were during the same period in 2006. This is particularly impressive, considering that the Internet population itself ‘only’ grew by 10% in this time.”
The fastest growing retailers online
- Swarovski experienced the strongest audience growth (+201%) between the Nov/Dec 2006 and Nov/Dec 2007 periods
- All ten of the fastest growing retailers online are high street brands – they include two from the jewellery sector, two from home & fashion, three from clothing, one from health & beauty, a supermarket and a computer games retailer
UK’s fastest-growing online retailers*: Nov/Dec 2006 - Nov/Dec 2007
Rank |
Retailer* |
Average UK Unique Audience in Nov/Dec 07 (000s) |
Average UK Unique Audience in Nov/Dec 06 (000s) |
% increase from Nov/Dec 06 to Nov/Dec 07 |
1 |
Swarovski |
355 |
118 |
201% |
2 |
Superdrug |
338 |
122 |
177% |
3 |
Matalan |
444 |
197 |
126% |
4 |
Morrisons |
381 |
173 |
120% |
5 |
Ernest Jones |
219 |
104 |
111% |
6 |
Game |
1,814 |
897 |
102% |
7 |
H&M |
226 |
114 |
98% |
8 |
La Senza |
347 |
184 |
88% |
9 |
Monsoon |
442 |
247 |
79% |
10 |
BHS |
392 |
222 |
76% |
*Minimum requirement = average of 100,000 Uniques across Nov/Dec 06
Source: Nielsen Online, UK NetView, home & work data, including applications, Nov/Dec 2006 – Nov/ Dec 2007
“Retail online still tends to be dominated by the pure online players. However, the high street brands have really come on leaps and bounds over the last year and have far outperformed their pure online competitors in terms of growth.”
Terms most closely associated with Christmas
To better understand sentiment towards Christmas, Nielsen Online’s BuzzMetrics applied a Brand Association Map™ (BAM) based on tracking conversations in UK blogs between September and November 2007. With the keyword "Christmas" at the centre, the BAM (overleaf) plots the most associated words and phrases in online conversations. The closer the words are to the centre, the greater the association.
- ‘Presents’ is the word most associated with Christmas. In terms of activities, ‘shopping’ is the word most associated with Christmas
Burmaster, concludes, “It’s not surprising that retail has done so well at Christmas when you see what people discuss online around Christmas. Words such as gifts, shopping, spend, money and buying are heavily associated with Christmas - good news for the retailers but probably disappointing for those worried about the diminishing spiritual and religious associations with Christmas.”
Brand Association Map™: UK Terms most closely associated with Christmas: September 2007 – November 2007
Source: Nielsen Online, BuzzMetrics, UK, September 2007 – November 2007
Please source all information to Nielsen Online (Nielsen Online is the new name for services previously marketed under the Nielsen//NetRatings and Nielsen BuzzMetrics brands)
Methodology
The retailer figures in this release come from NetView - the Nielsen//NetRatings panel of around 45,000 UK Internet users who have opted in to download a meter which records all their PC, online and application usage on a continual and ongoing basis.
The terms associated with Christmas come from a BuzzMetrics Brand Association Map™ which measures consumer conversations on the Internet. The results are based on a combination of factor analysis and multidimensional scaling (MDS). The analysis, built-in to our technology, determines the underlying dimensions of a conversation and visualizes the associations various words and phrases have in that conversation.
About Nielsen Online
Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, delivers comprehensive, independent measurement and analysis of online audiences, advertising, video, consumer-generated media, word of mouth, commerce and consumer behaviour, and includes products previously marketed under the Nielsen//NetRatings and Nielsen BuzzMetrics brands. With high quality, technology-driven products and services, Nielsen Online enables clients to make informed business decisions regarding their Internet, digital and marketing strategies. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-online.com.
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