Traffic to top retail websites during the summer months (June to August) was 10 percent higher than the previous year, with growth continuing into and increasing in September, according to the Hitwise Retail Index of the leading 100 U.S. retail* websites, writes sister site MarketingCharts.

August traffic increased most, growing 11 percent year over year, with the YOY increases steadily growing each summer month, Hitwise found (see table - US market share of visits to retail sites):

The growth pattern has continued into the fall, with US visits in September up 15 percent compared with the same month in '06.

"As we head into the 2007 online holiday season, the healthy increase in visits to the retail category this year versus last is an indicator that we will be seeing a strong showing for online retail in the fourth quarter," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise.

Top Retail Websites

Amazon.com was the most visited website among the top 100 retail websites during the summer months. Amazon's average market share of U.S. visits from June to August was 11.52 percent (see table: Top 5 most-visited retail websites, June-August):

Earlier this week, Hitwise announced the launch of its new Retail Data Center, a publicly available website that provides weekly online shopping trend data, based on how U.S. Internet users interact with more than 20,000 online shopping sites, across 21 shopping categories.

The Hitwise Retail Data Center features weekly data, including the following:

• Top 20 Most Visited Websites from custom category of top 100 retail websites (U.S. only)
• Top 10 Shopping Search Terms among rotating categories
• Top 10 Visited Shopping Websites among rotating categories
• Top Four Fast-Moving shopping websites

*The category of websites does not include sites from the following categories: auctions, classifieds, subscription services, DVD and video game rental, reward point collecting and coupons.