Online Retailers See 29% Surge in "Black Friday" Visitors

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 28, 2005 - 10:42am.

New York - Web traffic to online retailers on Black Friday -- the traditional start of the holiday shopping season -- shot up 29% from a year ago, according to new figures from Internet research firm Nielsen/NetRatings. The firm said that its 100 representative online retailers brought in 17.2 million unique visitors, up from 13.3 million a year ago. "While many shoppers headed out to the stores over the weekend, the majority first turned to the Internet to check prices and product availability," said Heather Dougherty, a senior retail analyst with Nielsen/NetRatings. EBay was the top online retailer, with 9.5 million unique visitors, followed by Amazon and Wal-Mart Stores, which drew 4.6 million and 3.4 million unique visitors, respectively. Target and BestBuy.com rounded out the top five. Target, Wal-Mart and Circuit City, which offered deep discounts on selected items on Friday, saw traffic to their sites more than double from the previous Friday.
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