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Online Holiday Shopping Season 2003 Begins, Driven by Toy Shopping, According to the Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday eCommerce Index

Nielsen//NetRatings Launches Fifth Annual Holiday eCommerce Index

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Nielsen//NetRatings, the
global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis, today launched
its fifth annual Holiday eCommerce Index. The index revealed the online
holiday shopping season has officially started during the past two weeks,
driven by a significant uptick in shopping at toys sites.

This year’s online holiday shopping season started the second week in
November, but kicked off stronger than last year by increasing 13 percent in
home and work shopping visits as compared to 11 percent a year ago.

Growth was calculated using the last week full week in October as a shopping
baseline. Traffic growth rates during the same weeks in years 2001 and 2000
were 20 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

Hot Categories: Toys, Home & Garden and Consumer Electronics
The categories of toys and video games, home and garden, and consumer
electronics saw consistently large increases in shopping activity since base
week ending October 26th. Traffic to toys and video game retailers jumped
99 percent during this period, led by ToysRUs (105 percent) and KB Holdings
(96 percent).

"Toys and games got the holiday season started this year, with big spikes
in many of the firms’ online sessions," said Robert Leathern, director and
senior analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Other categories like consumer
electronics, and home and garden have shown strong consistent growth
throughout this year, and continue to grow traffic strongly as the holiday
season is kicking off."

Home and garden sites saw consumer shopping sessions increase 27 percent
over the past two weeks, with MarthaStewart.com rising 80 percent and Sears
seeing 54 percent growth.

Consumer electronics showed strong progress with 25 percent overall
category growth. According to Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance, CircuitCity.com
delivered over 53 million online advertising impressions during the previous
week, and saw its online user sessions surge by 68 percent, followed by
RitzCamera.com (65 percent) and SonyStyle.com (15 percent).

By comparison, heavy hitters Amazon and eBay increased user sessions
16 percent and two percent, respectively, since base week ending October 26th.

Broadband Penetration — Key Driver to Search & Online Shopping
Nielsen//NetRatings research has found that consumers more intensely
research their online and offline purchases on the Web when they have
broadband Internet access.

"The persistent, always-on nature of broadband Internet connections means
more consumers are conducting searches, doing comparison shopping and
discovering more product- and merchant-related information. This also results
in a noticeable offline impact — more informed buyers," said Leathern.

"Expect to see search engines and online shopping comparison sites play a
major role in this season’s holiday shopping."

Nielsen//NetRatings also announced today a partnership with Goldman Sachs
and Harris Interactive on the launch of the third annual holiday eSpending
reports, measuring weekly online spending and consumer shopping behavior. For
more information, please click here:
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_031125.pdf.

About the Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday eCommerce Index

The weekly Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday eCommerce Index is based on total
shopping trips at work and at home, measuring the amount of Web surfing
activity at online retail sites during the course of the holiday season. The
index is comprised of approximately ten representative sites in each category,
and is meant to act as a barometer to gauge the level of interest at eCommerce
sites during the holidays. Categories tracked include apparel,
books/music/video, computer hardware/software, consumer electronics, flowers
and gifts, home and garden, jewelry, retail, shopping comparison/portals, and
toys and video games.

About Nielsen//NetRatings

Nielsen//NetRatings is the global standard for Internet audience
measurement and analysis and is the industry’s premier source for online
advertising intelligence with its NetView, AdRelevance, @Plan, WebRF, LemonAd,
MegaPanel and SiteCensus services. Covering 70 percent of the world’s Internet
usage, the Nielsen//NetRatings services offer syndicated Internet and digital
media research reports and custom-tailored data to help companies gain
valuable insight into their business. For more information, please visit
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com.

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