Consumers Switch off at Christmas

A study by RedSheriff across 50 websites and 2 million visitors has found that this Christmas websites saw a steeper drop-off of visitors than at Christmas 2001 across four business vertical sectors.

Comparing 4 business verticals, Publishing, Finance, E-commerce and Corporate Services, RedSheriff compared the traffic levels of each of the sites over the period just before Christmas and on Christmas day itself.

Christmas traffic dropped by an average of 50% in 2001, but in 2002 Christmas traffic fell by over 60%.

In 2001 the greatest decrease in Christmas traffic was 70% amongst Financial sites. However in the same period visits to E-commerce sites only dropped by 30% probably as consumers switched on to spend their Christmas money.

In 2002 the largest fall of 79% again came from the Financial sector with Corporate Service and E-commerce showing decreases of only 49% and 47% respectively. Although significantly higher than in 2001, the sites are still experiencing a good level of traffic if compared to the average fall of 60%.

As far as banking sites are concerned consumers were concentrating specifically on checking their balances probably after their shopping sprees. Traffics levels to other sections were relatively low with consumers not really showing any interest in any other financial information. On the e-commerce sites the traffic levels were consistent across all areas.

In summary, it looks like consumers are happy to interrupt Christmas lunch in order to go shopping online and check their bank balance, but not a lot else!

Martin Filz, European Vice President of RedSheriff said 'It is interesting to note that whilst Internet activity was actually up by 10-15% during December 2002 with 2001, the actual drop-off of visitors was much more pronounced this year rather than last. Clearly people decided to keep their computers switched off this festive season.'

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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