Holiday shopping increases traffic to Home & Garden sites, study says

Traffic to Home & Garden sites grew to more than 11 million unique visitors for the week ended Dec. 19, as holiday season shoppers boosted traffic to the category by 5% from 10.5 million for the week ended Sept. 19, Nielsen/NetRatings reports.

Average time per visit for the week ended Dec. 19, however, declined to 8 minutes, 51 seconds, from 10 minutes in September, Nielsen says.

The busiest Home & Garden site for the week was eBay Home, with 2.43 million unique visitors, followed by The Home Depot, 1.24 million; Lowe’s, 857,000; eBay Crafts, 703,000; HGTV, 492,000; Pottery Barn, 408,000; and Linens ‘n Things, 383,000.

Pottery Barn led in average time per visit, with 7 minutes, 36 seconds, followed by The Home Depot, 5 minutes, 47 seconds; Lowe’s, 5 minutes, 34 seconds; eBay Home, 5 minutes, 15 seconds; HGTV, 3 minutes, 59 seconds; eBay Crafts, 3 minutes, 29 seconds; Linens ‘n Things, 3 minutes, 22 seconds.

Female shoppers accounted for more than half of visitors to the category, at 59.6%, and shoppers aged 45 or more accounted for 46.8%.

When grouped by income, shoppers from households with incomes of $50,000 to $74,999 accounted for the largest share of visitors, at 28.6%.

For the same week, Royal Philips Electronics Nelco garnered the most online ad impressions among consumer goods home-and-garden advertisers, according to Nielsen’s AdRelevance report. The top 10 advertisers in that category cited by AdRelevance and their number of impressions in millions:
Royal Philips Electronics Norelco, 24.08
Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. 3M, 2.71
Sears, Roebuck and Co. Craftsman, 2.38
Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. Post-It, 1.55
Sanyo Electronics Roto-Sweep, 1.36
The Clorox Company Glad, 1.23
Flooring Industries Ltd. Uniclic, 1.2
Reckitt Benckiser plc Lysol, 1.09
American Standard Companies Inc. Trane, 1.02
Whirlpool Corporation Whirlpool, 646,000.