The top Internet commerce sites saw few gains in the number of consumers from August levels during September, a new study reveals.
While Amazon.com, Ticketmaster.com, and buy.com retained the first, second and third slots respectively, the number of individuals logging on to make purchases in the month just completed was virtually unchanged from August. Amazon had just over 1.6 million buyers, while Ticketmaster and buy.com had 569,000 and 428,000.
Cameron Meierhoefer, Internet analyst for PC Data Online, which hosted the study, attributed this to a reduction in discounting among e-commerce sites. “Online retailers have become serious about turning a profit and many have discarded the steep discounts they use to win over consumer last year,” said Meierhoefer in a statement. “This may be driving consumers to shop around – both online and off – for the best deal before buying.”
But not all e-tailers were stagnant: Pets.com rose from number 10 in August to number 8 after hosting 278,000 buyers, troubled toy retailer etoys.com rebounded from number 15 to number 11, with 187,000 buyers, and custom printer iprint.com returned to the top 20, holding steady at 17 with 112,000 buyers. Outpost.com, at number 18 with 109,000 buyers, was the only listed site that had not been featured previously.
Each visitor is counted only once during the site, regardless of the number of visits or purchases made from a given site. The sample population surveyed includes more than 120,000 homes.
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