Millions of students returning to college nationwide re-energized Internet activity in August, according to the latest data released by comScore Networks and Diameter, a division of DoubleClick, Inc. A surge of 45% in the college-based web audience drove a 2.3% increase in total U.S. Web users to 129 million from July to August, virtually restoring the domestic audience to its pre-summer level, the companies said.
Among properties realizing the greatest overall increase in traffic were retailers Columbia House (up 35%) and Amazon.com (up 12%).
“As would be expected, back-to-college means back to business for many companies,” said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks, “and the Internet again proves to be a serious channel for this critical shopping season.”
Dramatic spikes in unique visitors from college computers were noted across a number of key categories, comScore reported:
Reflecting the broad need for return transportation to campus, student traffic took off at travel sites TravelNow.com (up 85%), Greyhound.com (up 50%), and Expedia.com (up 32%)
Entertainment sites proved popular, including musiccity.com (up 161%), audiogalaxy.com (up 89%) and mtv.com (up 56%).
Overall college traffic to education sites was up 70%.
“Although increases in college/university traffic were to be expected, some industry observers doubted that online commerce would reap corresponding sales growth in light of a soft economy,” the research companies said. “Indeed, online buying data uniquely available from comScore show that overall dollar sales across a broad sample of e-commerce sites declined by 2% from July to August, with smaller shopping baskets offsetting an increase of 3% in the number of online purchases.”
They continued: “However, deeper analysis of the August comScore data clearly suggests that at some sites, many students and their families opened their checkbooks when they opened their browsers. For example, online apparel retailers – particularly those with value-priced merchandise – enjoyed dollar sales increases of 60% or more versus July. Some online music retailers saw sales jump from 8% to nearly 30%. And not surprisingly, stationery and office supply outlets enjoyed online sales growth as high as 68%, while at least one specialty retailer of textbooks and other college merchandise registered August sales over twenty times its July level.”
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