HITWISE UK RETAIL UPDATE

Discount Vouchers Cause Visits to Threshers and Selfridges Websites to Soar.

 Retail Category Enjoys Strong November.

London, 5^th December 2006

Analysis from Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, reveals that visits to the Threshers website (www.threshers.co.uk) surged eight-fold last week after a 40% discount offer resulted in a stampede by UK consumers. The voucher, which was reportedly only intended for suppliers and their friends, spread virally across the web. Last week, Threshers ranked at #37 among Grocery and Alcohol websites up from #103 the week before.

Consumers were actively searching online for the vouchers, with the share of UK internet searches for “threshers” increasing more than 2000 times last week. The #2 search term entered into search engines that included the keyword “threshers” was “threshers voucher”, #4 was “threshers discount voucher” and #6 was “threshers 40%”. 

The weblog for South African wine-producer, Stormhoek, which posted the voucher on 24^th November, saw its website visits surge ahead of those to Threshers, capturing a 110 times larger share of visits than Threshers. On 28^th November, the voucher was also posted in the forums of MoneySavingExpert.com and 45% of visits to Threshers.co.uk came from forums.moneysavingexpert.com last week.

Selfridges 20% offer emailed to customers last week also caused a surge in interest. Market share of UK internet visits to the Selfridges website (www.selfridges.co.uk) more than doubled (up 121%) and the site became the 26^th most visited Department Store website last week, up from #37 the previous week. 12.6% of visits to the Selfridges website came from email services, up more than three-fold in one week.

“High street retailers are fighting to win customers by offering generous discounts to customers this Christmas” said Heather Hopkins, VP of Research for Hitwise UK. “Whilst the Threshers discount was not intended for wide distribution, it shows the power of promotions to spread like wildfire online. Promotions can be used to attract customers and to gather valuable contact details for customers.”

Retailers Enjoy Strong November Online

Visits to the Hitwise UK Retail 100 Index were up 23% in November compared with October, boding well for a strong Christmas season for online retailers. The Hitwise UK Retail 100 Index is comprised of 100 of the top retail websites, based on share of UK internet visits. Year-on-year, visits to the category were up 2%.

High street retailers are making a comeback, claiming six of the top ten spots among retail websites last week compared with five in the same week in 2005. Argos, Tesco.com, Marks & Spencer, Woolworths, HMV.co.uk and Currys were among the top 10 retail websites based on share of UK internet visits last week , with Marks & Spencer, Woolworths and HMV.co.uk new to the list in 2006.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill
jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619