Leading comparison-shopping websites' market share of visits was up 56 percent for the week ended Nov. 3, 2007 compared with the year-earlier period, receiving a boost from Boomers, according to a Hitwise analysis of the custom category of sites, writes MarketingCharts.

Yahoo Shopping had the highest share of visits within the category at 20 percent, and its market share was up 44 percent from the year-earlier. Smarter.com and Bizrate followed with 15 percent and 14 percent market share, respectively.

The retailers benefiting the most from the top comparison-shopping websites were Amazon, eBay, Target, Overstock.com, Wal-Mart, and JCPenney; they received the largest percentage of downstream traffic from those comparison sites for the week ended Nov. 3.

(Shortcuts to tables in this article: (1) top 20 retail websites and (2) top brand and top product search terms driving comparison-shopping traffic.)

"As we enter the holiday shopping season, consumers are beginning to research potential gift purchases and compare prices earlier than last year especially with retailers beginning to roll out seasonal promotions," said Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise.

"Baby boomers are the main visitors of comparison-shopping websites, and our search-term data indicates that consumer electronics continue to be popular amongst these comparison shoppers."

• The share of traffic from online users aged 45+ increased 38 percent across the top comparison-shopping sites for the week ended Nov. 3 compared with same week in 2006.
• Shopzilla experienced the biggest increase in traffic among visitors aged 45+ with a 58 percent gain for the week ended Nov. 3 compared with the same week last year.
• NexTag saw a 48 percent increase in traffic while Yahoo Shopping received a 46 percent increase for the same week.

Among other Hitwise data issued:

• Search engines were the main driver of traffic to the top comparison-shopping websites, with Google referring 20 percent of visits and Yahoo Search referring 14 percent for the week ended Nov. 3.
• The leading product search terms driving traffic to the comparisonshopping websites were laptop computers, Nintendo Wii, LCD TV, digital cameras, iPods, and Xbox360 for the four weeks ended Nov. 3.

Online Holiday Shopping Update:

• The Hitwise US Retail 100 Index* chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were up 13 percent for the week ended Nov. 3, 2007 versus the same week last year (Nov. 4, 2006).

• Amazon.com remained the most visited website within the Index last week, receiving 11.34 percent of visits among the Retail 100 Index. Wal-Mart received the second-most visits with 6.34 percent. Wal-Mart was the biggest gainer, as its traffic increased 24 percent compared with the previous week.

• The more popular search terms during the 2006 holiday retail were again the top search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the week ended Nov. 3, 2007. The product term "wii" was the most searched product, followed by the "uggs" and "xbox 360".

* The Hitwise Retail 100 Index does not include websites from the following categories - auctions, classifieds, computer manufacturers, relationship sales, reward point collecting and home entertainment – music download, DVD and video game rental.