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Store sites gain on e-tailers
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December 9, 1999: 3:56 p.m. ET
Department stores, apparel retailers see best percentage gains in visitors
By Staff Writer Chris Isidore
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Traditional retailers are gaining on the people who invented online sales.
More shoppers are visiting the Web sites of department stores and apparel retailers, according to two major Internet-tracking firms.
Statistics released Wednesday from two Internet-tracking firms, Media Metrix and PC Data, both show that while the pure Internet retailers - those that began business as online retailers -- still dominate the list of top online shopping sites, the traditional retailers, such as well-known department stores and apparel retailers are making the biggest percentage gains.
"It's a combination of the consumers going to the brand they know and the brand they know being there with the product when they get there," said David Cooperstein, director of consumer e-commerce research for Forrester Research.
"Some of the major retailers didn't have sites last year and at some of those who did, you couldn't buy a lot last year. This year they've all gotten that religion."
Triple-digit gains in some sectors
Media Metrix reports that the sectors with the best percentage growth in unique visitors are department stores and apparel sites.
Unique visitors is a term that relates to a hit to a Web site by an individual computer, as opposed to the total number of hits, which would also include repeat hits from the same computer.
The department store sites had a 228 percent increase in online shoppers in the week ending Dec. 5 compared with the same period a year earlier, and a 74 percent gain from the week ending Nov. 28 this year. Apparel sites, which do not include any of the major pure Internet retailers, had a 134 percent gain from a year ago and a 60 percent gain from the previous week.
PC Data Online, another company that tracks Internet usage, came out with its own ranking of top shopping Web sites for November. It said the greatest increase was at landsend.com, the site of the clothing catalog retailer Lands' End Inc. (LE), which has been trying to shift more of its shoppers to its site. Landsend.com moved to eighth on the ranking from 24th on the list in October, as it saw 779,000 unique users of the site. And of the top sites, it had by far the greatest percentage of users actually buying at the site, with a 36.3 percent buy rate.
Two other traditional retailers - Office Max and KB Kids, also moved on to PC Data's top 20 list in November. Petopia.com was the only pure Internet retailer new to the list.
New buyers look for old brands
"We have a more mainstream customer out there right now," said Cameron Meierhoefer, an Internet research analyst for PC Data. "It's not just the Internet savvy person surfing for a deal. It's just about anybody, and they're going to the brands they know and that they're comfortable with."
While Amazon.com (AMZN) is still the top Internet shopping site on both firm's list, the traditional retailers are making gains as never before, said Doug McFarland, senior vice president and general manager of Media Metrix.
"Certainly what we're looking at now is not what we were looking at last year," said McFarland. "Then it wasn't brick and mortar retailers we were tracking, it was Internet retailers."
Problems executing sales
While the Media Metrix statistics released to the public only track visits to the sites, McFarland said the company's proprietary data on actual purchases by surfers track pretty closely with the broader number. But Forrester's Cooperstein said some of the traditional retailers, such as Toys "R" Us Inc. (TOY), may be having problems executing their e-commerce strategy this year.
"Toysrus.com can't execute on half the visitors who come to the site," he said. "If you talk to them, they have very modest (online) sales expectations for this year."
A spokeswoman for Toys "R" Us, who spoke only on condition her name is not used, said the problems that Cooperstein refers to were for about a week and a half in early November and have since been solved.
"The company is incredibly pleased with the results so far and they have surpassed even our robust projections," she said.
Online comparison shopping
Toysrus.com had 1.9 million unique visitors last week, a 451 percent increase compared to a year ago. But it lost the lead it had over online competitor eToys.com in average daily visitors during the previous three weeks, according to Media Metrix's numbers. KBkids.com owner Consolidated Stores Inc. (CNS) turned to privately held BrainPlay.com to run the site earlier this year, with BrainPlay taking a 20 percent stake in the operation. The site also shows strong growth, seeing 1.1 million unique visitors to its site, a 384 percent gain over the same week a year earlier.
An official from eToys (ETYS) said the strong percentage gains from sites such as toysrus.com or kbkids.com does not necessarily create problems for eToys' position.
"I don't think KBkids was even on Media Metrix's listing last year. When you climb from small traffic numbers, the percentage gains are a little crazy," said Suki Shattuck, eToys' director of investor relations. "We've always seen competition. But as more toy sales move online, we think we're very well positioned to be a place where people will come and look for product."
For many online shoppers, it is not a matter of the online retailer or traditional retailer's site. A huge percentage of toy shoppers are visiting more than one site, for example. The Media Metrix number of unique visitors for etoys.com, toyrus.com and kbkids.com total 5.1 million among them last week. But, when it counts unique visitors to all toy sites during the same week, it had only 4.6 million unique visitors during the same week, meaning that a large number that were visitors had to be looking at more than one site. 
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