Nielsen//NetRatings Forecasts 55 Million Shoppers
For Online Holiday Shopping Season 2000

NEW YORK – October 11, 2000 – Approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population, or 55 million people, are expected to visit online shopping sites from home this holiday season, according to Nielsen//NetRatings’ newly released report on the upcoming holiday season 2000. With 14 million more shoppers going online this year compared to last year, consumers will flock en masse to the Web to find that perfect gift online. 
E-tailers this year will face fierce competition from leading offline “brick and mortars” making their debut online during the holidays.

In August 2000, 146 million people had access to the Web, a 35 percent increase from last year, creating an even larger customer base for e-tailers. The average time spent per person online has grown nearly 15 percent from 27 minutes to 31 minutes during the same time period. “It will be the ultimate challenge for e-tailers to turn surfers into spenders as more surfers go online for longer periods of time,” said Sean Kaldor, vice president of eCommerce at NetRatings, Inc.

“Holiday season 2000 will be the revenge of the brick and mortars,” said Kaldor. “Battle lines on the Internet are being drawn between the offline ‘brick and mortar’ stores and the Internet pureplays. Offline giants such as Old Navy, Kmart, and BestBuy, all of which had little or no Web presence last year, are poised for extraordinary growth during this holiday season. The biggest question is, will these companies be able to survive the intense infrastructure issues that plagued many companies last year.”

What’s Hot This Holiday Season?
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the online sector poised for the highest growth this holiday season is toys. Nielsen//NetRatings projects 10 million people will shop online for toys in December 2000. These figures show a 270 percent projected growth from last year’s holiday season (see Table 1). There is also a key shift in Web audience demographics.  Last year females made up 36 percent of all shoppers, whereas this year women make up 58 percent of the total online audience. 

Last holiday season, eToys was the definitive winner in the toy category with more than four million visitors in November 1999 and almost 4.7 million in December 1999, compared to Toys R Us numbers at 3.5 million and 3.4 million, respectively. “Although eToys brought home the holiday gold last year, Toys R Us is poised to raise the bar with its recent partnership with Amazon.com,” said Kaldor. “Amazon.com has a unique online presence that hasn’t been matched by any other e-tailer.”

Table 1. Nielsen//NetRatings Category Projected Growth for Holiday Season 2000 (Home)

Category	Percent Growth
Toys/Games/Entertainment	270%
Consumer Electronics	109%
Books/Video/Music	65%
Apparel/Accessories/Shoes	61%
Virtual Department Stores	51%

Electronics, apparel, books/video/music, gifts, malls, and toys experienced the highest level of seasonal growth last year.  Nielsen//NetRatings anticipates strength in these categories again, but also sees virtual department stores as an important emerging category, as several online merchants offer a wider variety of products, and established industry giants debut online in droves. 

Customer Service Will Help E-Tailers Stand Out
As both online merchants and brick and mortars compete for advertising dollars, the real winner will be the customer service provider who delivers on its promises. Sites that offer a satisfactory buying experience from the beginning of the sales process to the end of a successful fulfillment will reap the most rewards in both strong sales and returning loyal customers.                 

About Nielsen//NetRatings
Nielsen//NetRatings, the audience measurement service from Nielsen Media Research and NetRatings, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTRT), collects real-time data from more than 65,000 panel members in the United States. The U.S. panel sample consists of 57,000 at-home users and 8,000 at-work users.  These panels collectively represent the largest representative media research sample of Internet users in the industry. Worldwide, Nielsen//NetRatings services are provided via a partnership with ACNielsen eRatings.com, a venture between ACNielsen (NYSE: ART) and NetRatings, Inc. and measure the Internet experiences of more than 175,000 Internet users.  

Nielsen//NetRatings services use unique technology capable of measuring both Internet use and advertising to provide the most timely, accurate and comprehensive Internet usage data and advertising information in the global marketplace. Nielsen//NetRatings services leverage proprietary data-collection technology from NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research's 50 years of expertise in research and audience measurement, and ACNielsen’s international leadership in supplying market research information covering more than 100 countries.

Editor’s Note:  Please source all data to Nielsen//NetRatings.