February 20, 2007

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According to interactive agency Oneupweb, Internet users do most of their Valentine's Day gift shopping from work Mondays and Tuesdays.

Between Feb. 1 and Feb. 12, the agency tracked the behavior of thousands of consumers online, following them across a broad range of Internet retail clients who were selling Valentine's Day gifts.

The agency's study revealed that online Valentine's Day sales actually peaked Tuesday, Feb. 6, while Internet traffic to Web sites was highest Monday, Feb. 12.

Lisa Wehr, CEO of Oneupweb said “for direct marketers, the primary takeaway is timing.” She added “if you're shipping Valentine's Day gifts, your pay-per-click bid strategies should consider the Feb. 6 sales peak.

“And don't think because you're an eCommerce company that you can ignore natural search optimization,” Wehr said. “The data proves that the power of natural search listings do provide more traffic and sales,” she said.

Oneupweb reviewed data covering the online search behavior of more than 250,000 unique visitors across a variety of retail Web sites that sell Valentine’s Day apparel, gifts, jewelry and flowers.

In the study, traffic figures counted the number of visitors to a site once, using cookie technology to recognize repeat visitors.

Most consumers do their Valentine’s Day shopping at work. Ms. Wehr said shoppers may be taking advantage of the faster office broadband connection or trying to keep their purchases a secret.

“You should anticipate holiday seasons early enough to optimize your website just in time,” Wehr said.

“Make sure that your bid strategies follow the peaks. You don't want to be paying for keywords when you can't ship the item in time. Also, you don't want to miss out on sales on Feb. 6 by being at the bottom of the list,” she said.

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Source: DM News