EBay tops e-tailer list in '07 holiday season

Forget about brick-and-mortar stores drawing in the most online shoppers. Most online shoppers are focused on online auctioneer EBay this holiday season, albeit by a slight margin. According to a new report from Nielsen//Netratings, the auction site is the most visited etailing hub for the week ending December 9th.

by Kristina Knight

Nielsen//Netratings bases their findings on data gathered from the Holiday e-Shopping Index December 2 to December 9. They found that EBay received 32 million unique visitors the week ending December 2nd and the week ending December 9th. Amazon.com, the second most-visited site according to Nielsen//Netratings, received 28 million visitors (Dec. 2) and 30 million visitors (Dec. 9) respectively. Meanwhile retailer Target had 16 million visitors for the week of December 2nd but only 15 million for the week of December 9th.

So far this holiday season Green Monday (the second Monday in December) has been the busiest online shopping day with more than $880 million spent during the 24-hour period. Nearly 35 million unique users logged on to the Holiday eShopping Index on Green Monday.

Queries for flowers and gifts have increased the most so far this holiday season (29% increase year over year), followed by beauty products (11% increase). Shoes have seen a 10% increase.