The early take on Cyber Monday’s online holiday-season traffic was mixed with overall visits down a less-than-disastrous 1 percent and traffic to top merchant Amazon up 21 percent.
Amazon.com received the most traffic
According to a survey of 500 retail Web sites, Monday’s online visits were off 1 percent compared with a year ago, said Hitwise. Online traffic on the first Monday following Thanksgiving is usually a good gauge of the strength of the holiday period.
Hitwise said visits to merchants with only online stores were up 5 percent. Traffic to the sites of companies with brick-and-mortar stores was lower by 4 percent.
The most frequently visited Web site was Amazon’s, which drew 10.8 percent of shoppers. Wal-Mart’s was the second most visited, with 8.6 percent of traffic, followed by Target, 4.6 percent; Best Buy, 3.8 percent; and Sears, 2.7 percent.
Amazon.com’s traffic rose 21 percent from last year while Wal-Mart’s increased 6 percent, Hitwise said.
Traffic to comparison-shopping Web sites was down 21 percent.
Jean-Baptiste Su
Mark Boslet
