Walmart, Amazon.com Hot Sites On Thanksgiving, Black Friday

Market research firm Experian Hitwise has announced the big online winners for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, and the world's biggest retailer won the day on Thranksgiving, but on Black Friday, it was the world's biggest online retailer.

Walmart was the top visited Retail Website on Thanksgiving Day among the top 500 Retail Web sites. This is the fifth year in a row that Wal-Mart was the top visited site on Thanksgiving Day. Meanwhile, Amazon.com was the second most visited site on Thanksgiving.

On Black Friday, however, Amazon.com was the top visited Retail Website among the top 500 Retail Websites. In fact, it swapped positions with Walmart, which was the number 2 most visited site on Black Friday.

The overall numbers weren't too good, however. For Thanksgiving Day, in fact:

• Among the top 500 Retail Web sites, the percentage of U.S. visits were down 15% on Thanksgiving Day in 2009 compared to Thanksgiving Day 2008. The U.S. traffic to Black Friday sites on Thanksgiving Day was down 4% compared to 2008.
• The top visited Retail Web site on Thanksgiving Day 2009 was Walmart.com receiving 15% of U.S. visits among the top 500 Retail Web sites.
  
• Amazon.com was the second most visited with 12.41% of visits followed by BestBuy.com with 6.22%. Target.com was the fourth most visited with 5.63% followed by Sears with 3.78%. (Attached are the top 20 sites for Thanksgiving Day 2009).
• Among the top 20 sites visited on Thanksgiving Day 2009, Old Navy saw the largest increase in visits compared to 2008 with a 59% increase, Amazon saw a 30% increase year-over-year (YoY) and Target saw a 28% increase. Wal-Mart had a 9% increase and the Apple Store site saw an 8% increase.
• Wal-Mart was the top site to receive traffic from Black Friday sites on Thanksgiving Day 2009 with an 11% increase in traffic compared to 2008. BestBuy and Target received the second and third most traffic from Black Friday sites. Facebook received the largest increase in visits YoY with a 671%.
• According to Akamai, global retail traffic peaked on the U.S. Thanksgiving Day (11/26/09) at 5,732,966 visitors per minute at around 2pm EST. On the same day, North America traffic peaked at 4,095,242 visitors per minute at around 10pm EST.

Experian Hitwise's Black Friday data showed more interesting information, and more disappointing numbers. Compared to Thanksgiving Day 2009, Black Friday 2009 was up 4%. However, when compared YoY with Black Friday 2009, visits were down 9%. Also:

• The top visited Retail Website on Black Friday 2009 was Amazon receiving 13.55 % of U.S. visits among the top 500 Retail Web sites. This is the second year in a row that Amazon was the top visited site on Black Friday.
• Wal-Mart was the second most visited with 11.18 % of visits followed by Target.com with 5.65%, BestBuy.com with 4.62%. followed by Sears with 2.95%. (Attached are the top 20 sites for Black Friday 2009).
• Among the top 20 sites visited on Black Friday 2009, The Apple Store saw the largest increase in visits compared to Thanksgiving day 2009 with a 110% increase, Staples saw a 47% increase YoY and Dell saw a 40% increase. Amazon had a 9% increase.
• Wal-Mart was the top site to receive traffic from Black Friday sites on Black Friday 2009 with a 32% increase in traffic compared to 2008. BestBuy and Target received the second and third most traffic from Black Friday sites. Among the top 10 sites to receive traffic from Black Friday sites on Black Friday, Target received the largest increase in visits YoY with 110%.

Market research firm comScore has already forecast a 3% rise in online sales from last year's holiday season. The disappointment there is that last year holiday online sales dropped 3%, the first such drop since comScore began tracking online sales in 2001. This would just bring the state of holiday online shopping even with that of 2007, a sad state of affairs.