December a boon for top e-retailers

Amazon.com continued its commanding dominance over online holiday spending with three times as many buyers and over twice as many shoppers as its closest competitors, a recent report on December 2000 web retailing by PC Data Online disclosed.
At the same time, catalog and brick-and-mortar sites demonstrated a growing presence among the top 20 December e-retailers, claiming over half of the top online slots. With 3.9 million projected buyers and 28 million shoppers in December, Amazon.com easily led BarnesandNoble.com at No. 2 with 951,000 projected buyers and 8.3 million shoppers and cdnow.com at No. 3 with 942,000 projected buyers and 8.6 million shoppers. Jcpenney.com was No. 4 with 885,000 buyers, Walmart.com at No. 5 with 739,000 buyers and Sears.com at No. 6 with 658,000 buyers. Other traditional offline e-retail sites in the top 20 were bestbuy.com at No. 12, Gap.com at No. 13, Oldnavy.com at No. 15, Target.com at No. 17, Landsend.com at No.18, Spiegel.com at No. 19 and Jcrew.com at No. 20.
"The distinction between pure-play Internet retailers and the so-called 'click-and-mortar' challengers is quickly becoming obsolete," said Cameron Meierhoefer, Internet analyst for PC Data. "In 1999, only four offline sites were among the top 20. This year there are 12. Big, experienced retailers are now a serious presence on the web. Only one question remains: Can anyone challenge Amazon?"
Posting impressive jumps within the top 20 was Outpost.com with 259,000 projected buyers at No. 14 from No. 29 and 1800flowers.com with 231,000 projected buyers at No. 16 from No. 23. Drugstore.com registered the highest buy rate of 16.4%, converting the most shoppers into buyers in December.
Data for the top 20 online retailers is gathered through a proprietary software tool that tracks unique visitors and unique buyers on each web site. Each visitor or buyer is counted once, regardless of how many times the individual visits a site or buys from a site. This sample was taken from among 120,000 home Internet users, who have downloaded PC Data's software. Total home Internet users are estimated at approximately 90 million.