The Heavy Chef Project

I received this article by Jason Lee Miller from WebProNews in my email this week and was amazed by the figures. It really does highlight the changing ways in which consumers are pursuaded to buy online. It is now more than ever an interactive experience rather than just the search and find mentality of a couple of years ago.

You expect to see Google at the top the of list in pretty much any search breakdown, followed distantly behind by Yahoo!. But would you, in any category, expect MSN to be outdone by MySpace? Online shopping just got a lot more social.

Hitwise reports MySpace generates more traffic to online shopping and classified sites than MSN. Ouch.

Hitwise reports that Google was the top US search engine driving
traffic to the Shopping and Classifieds category of websites for the
week ending August 26. Yahoo! sends waves of traffic that way to the
tune of 4.69 percent.

Though Hitwise puts MSN in third with 2.33 percent, it’s only because
of the name of the category. The list was for search engines, not
social networking sites. MySpace directed more traffic to the likes of
eBay, Amazon and Craigslist than MSN, accounting for 2.53 percent of
all US upstream visits.

"Holy smokes" should be the phrase bounding in your head.

"Search is a proven method of acquiring traffic and Google is the
leader in driving online retail site traffic," said Bill Tancer,
general manager of Global Research at Hitwise.

"With the growth of MySpace and others, online retailers should expand
their focus beyond search to consider social networking sites as a
source of additional traffic."

Harnessing the potential of MySpace has hitherto been touch and go.
Traditional advertisers have balked at the lack of control that exists
within the social networks. But perhaps more of a barrier has been
uncertainty about how to use this new real estate effectively. It’s
difficult to the course if you’ve never been there before.
You remember the first day of a new school, walking in amongst a group
of strangers for good or ill, and putting yourself out there for
acceptance or ridicule? It’s like that.

So what we look to then are those that aren’t wasting any time and seeing how they fare in the social networking space. Nanette Marcus
over at iMedia, put together an examination of five brands that are
effectively using MySpace to form a relationship with a new buying
public.

Jack In The Box, Nike, Honda, Cingular, and Aquafina get the prize in Marcus’ estimation. Wallmartnot so good.

The Hitwise report also revealed the top searched brands, generic terms
and products driving searchers to shopping sites for the month of
August:

The top brands
eBay, Craigslist, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Amazon, Home Depot, and Sears.

The top products
Barbie, iPod, Heelys, Crocs, Bratz, Lego, Webkinz, Bowflex, Proactive, Air Force Ones.

The top generic terms
lingerie, sex toys, Halloween costumes, auto parts, textbooks, shoes, furniture, cell phones, checks, flowers.