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 was 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, however, is 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.