Unique visitor estimates at Compete.com show that internet traffic in the month of November rose dramatically at several popular websites. Of the largest United States online retail portals, the biggest winners in the month of November were Apple.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) which rose 39.9% and the Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE:M) website, which rose 38.6%. Following them were GameStop Corp’s (NYSE:GME) website, which grew by 32%, and Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE:BBY), which rose 29.9%.
All eyes have been on the online market leaders, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) which have risen 22.2% and 20.9% respectively according to the Unique Visitor metric at Compete.com. That’s in-line with an overall increase in traffic for many other popular destinations. For example, trade site craigslist.org is up 22.1% year over year, according to the estimates, while torrent site thepiratebay.org is up 24%. While Google.com is up 11.8% in November, slickdeals.net, which helps advertise products from all of the mentioned retail websites, has risen 27%.
Outside of retail, mail services United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) and FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) have seen dramatic year over year traffic increases of 34.2% and 43.3% while the United States Postal Service portal, USPS.com has risen only 19% in comparison.
Payment site Paypal.com saw a 24% jump in November, but it’s parent eBay.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) only witnessed a 5.1% increase. The only other major retailers under 20% year over year were Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) which was up 17.7% and Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) up 19.4%. Private company Toys R US was up 23.3%.
The biggest loser for the year was Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK), down 8.9% year over year.
The results seem especially favorable for buying stock in Apple which reports in January, as well as Macy's and GameStop, which report in February. Apple shares, however, are already up 117% year over year and Macy's is up near 60%. GameStop shares look more attractive, down 8.6% year over year.
Investors may want to be cautious about eBay, reporting in January and up 57% in a year, as well as Target and Overstock, who report in February, and are up 40% and 6% in one year.
