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To: CENTrader who wrote (984)	12/16/1997 11:27:00 AM
From: chirodoc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8545

Web Shopping Traffic Up 50 Percent (12/15/97; 7:53 p.m. EST) By John Borland, Net Insider The number of PC users who visited Web shopping sites went up by more than 50 percent over the last year, a Web demographics research company said Monday. About 37 percent of active Web users visited online commerce sites in October, said officials of Media Metrix Inc, a New-York based company that records computer users' online habits. In October of last year, only about 27 percent of Web users found their way to a shopping site, the report said. "Among all of the website categories that Media Metrix reports on, shopping is one of the most rapidly growing across all demographic groups," said Mary Ann Packo, the company's president. The report also said the percentage of computer owners who actively browsed the Web during October went up about 15 percent compared to the same period last year. However, active Web users still represented only about a third of a 28,000-person sample group of PC households. The Media Metrix report comes in the midst of a holiday shopping season that some analysts have predicted will break $1 billion in online sales for the first time. A recent Jupiter Communications report estimated that Web shoppers will spend about $1.1 billion in 1997 holiday purchases, while other research firms have set their predictions several hundreds of millions of dollars lower. Some online commerce professionals have warned against putting too much faith in such predictions, however. Growth will be significant, said Craig Danuleff, president of Seattle-based iCat, which produces online business catalogues. "But this thing has always been hyped beyond belief," Danuleff said. "It never quite makes it, but it does well enough that we keep going," Danuleff added. "I think that's going to happen again this year." The Media Metrix report did contain good news for several industries. The most-visited shopping sites in October's survey were bookseller Amazon.com, Cnet's software download center, and music vendor Columbia House. Both the publishing and recording industries have been in slumps in recent months, and increasing online sales - even if they are still small in absolute terms - mark one area of potential for future growth. Twenty-three percent of teenagers under 18, a key market for music compact discs and other inexpensive consumer items, visited online shopping sites in October, according to the report. The most popular Net-based companies in this demographic group were CDNow.com, Music Boulevard and Amazon.com. Media Metrix has installed hardware devices in 10,000 homes around the country, tracking 28,000 computer users' page-by-page Web browsing habits in much the same way Nielsen tracks the viewing patterns of television watchers. Media Metrix did not report how many of the shoppers' visits actually resulted in purchases. Search Archives All CMP Publications TechWire