comScore: Holiday shopping season was "robust"

For France and the UK the holiday shopping season proved to have quite a few benefits for online retailers. According to the metrics firm the season peaked in the first half of December for most etailers.

by Kristina Knight

This is a fairly normal occurrence according to Bob Ivins, EVP of European markets for comScore. “The typical pattern we note in all countries, including the U.S., is that online retail activity peaks in mid-December as consumers have to allow time for shipping and delivery of their purchases in most categories,” he said.

In the UK, Amazon sites drew 9% of the traffic during the holiday shopping season (October 29 - December 23) while Apple brands attracted about 6% of online shoppers. The Home Retail Group of websites, which include Argos and Homebase pulled in 5% of holiday shoppers.

Meanwhile in France Groupe PPR was the main attraction for online shoppers, drawing in 11% of shopping traffic. Apple drew 5% of shoppers and Amazon websites drew in 4% of the holiday shopping traffic.

On the other hand, holiday shopping in Germany was not as robust. While users still flocked to online retailers, their peak was later in the season that the peak week for UK and French shoppers, indicating that while users were shopping online they were also finding deals in brick-and-mortar stores.

The leading shopping site for German etailers was Otto Gruppe with an 11% share of shoppers. Amazon sites attracted 9% of shoppers while Arcandor AG attracted 5%.