Smaller Retailers Reliance on Search Engines

Smaller top retailers lean more heavily on search engines than their larger competitors according to a new study by Hitwise.

Internet Retailer sums up the report nicely:

Smaller niche merchants in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide are more dependent on search engines to drive traffic and sales than their larger competitors, according to new data from web measurement company Hitwise Inc.

While MarketingCharts lays out some of the bullet points of the Hitwise report:

• Half of merchants ranked 400-500 rely on search engines for 50% or more of site traffic.


• Most Top 100 retailers depend on search engines for 11-30% of monthly visits; only one generated up to 39% of site traffic from search engines.


• Only 13 Top 100 retailer generated 30.1-40% of all site traffic from search engines; 50 generated 20.1-30% of traffic via search; 31 generated 10.1- 20%, and 6 generated less than 10% of traffic, via search.

The implications are pretty clear from the data spread... large retailers are just beginning to tap into the search engine traffic and sales generation game as compared to smaller retailers who have been using search via their PPC and affiliate programs for growth and performance.

As companies, such as comScore, which serve the largest retailers point the way towards more search involvement, the metrics begin to make more sense and affiliate/click fraud is neutralized by a wiser and more efficient market, expect these numbers to even out in the coming year.