Consumers Search for 'eBay' More Than Any Retail Brand on the Web, Reports Hitwise; Halloween and Back-to-School Drive Searching In September

Business Wire, Oct 6, 2004

NEW YORK -- Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive Intelligence service, reports that while eBay is the most visited online shopping and auction destination, it also is the most searched-for brand in the entire Shopping category. According to Hitwise, the popularity of the term "ebay" dwarfs the level of search-engine queries for all other retailers fivefold or more.

Hitwise Search Term data show that for the four weeks ending Sept. 25, 2004, the term "ebay" commanded 1.49 percent of queries across all major search engines that delivered traffic to Shopping and Classifieds sites. Meanwhile, "walmart" represented 0.28 percent of all searches; "best buy" 0.26 percent; "amazon.com" 0.24 percent; home depot 0.24 percent; and "target" 0.22 percent.

"Similar to its dominance of shopping Web traffic, the popularity of eBay among total shopping searches reflects the brand's equity," said Bill Tancer, Vice President of Research, Hitwise. "Considering this massive consumer appeal, both small and mega online retailers should consider eBay not only as a competitor, but also as a potential partner in their ongoing customer acquisition and e-commerce strategies."

Retailers Dominate Brand-Specific Searches, While Halloween and Back-to-School Influence Generic Product Searches

Among the top 50 brand-specific search terms delivering traffic to the shopping category, retailers dominated over product-specific brands. Highlights of the top 50 product searches for the four weeks ending Sept. 25, 2004:

--The arrival of Fall sports have helped make "sporting goods" the number-one product search term. And with Halloween approaching, "halloween costumes" was the second most popular search term.

--Eight of the top 50 product search terms included the word "books", driven largely by college students on the prowl for affordable texts. Top search terms included: "used books", "used textbooks", "college textbooks", "college books", "used college books", "cheap books" and "used text books".

--Fifty-two percent of search-engine queries delivering traffic to shopping sites included only one or two words. However, there is significant variation in word count across sub-categories, depending on how descriptive the searches are. For example, 56 percent of search queries delivering traffic to apparel sites contain one or two words, while 58 percent of searches delivering traffic to automotive sites contain three or more words.