It won't change lives...
or will it?

As Christmas approaches, searches on the term "gift cards" in the week ended Dec. 15 increased 14 percent compared with the same week in 2006, with Visa and American Express the top 2 branded gift cards searched for last week, according to Hitwise, writes MarketingCharts.

Other top branded gift cards searches included Wal-Mart, iTunes, Best Buy, Target, MasterCard and Hess. The top non-branded gift card searches included terms such as free, discount, restaurant, gas, charity and prepaid.

"Gift cards are popular with shoppers again this holiday season as they become increasingly more socially acceptable than traditional gifts," said Heather Dougherty, director of research, Hitwise.

"One big trend this year is that consumers are looking for the gift cards which are more universally accepted across a variety of merchants, such as Visa or American Express, to provide recipients with the options to spend their cards wherever they need, which this year could include necessities like groceries or gas."

Online Holiday Shopping Update

• The Hitwise US Retail 100 Index chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were up one percent for the week ending Dec. 15, 2007 versus the previous week (Dec. 8, 2007) - and up 12 percent compared with the same week last year (Dec. 16, 2006).

• Amazon.com was the most-visited website within the Retail Index last week, receiving 13 percent of US visits. Walmart.com received the second-most visits with 8 percent. CircuitCity.com was the biggest gainer for the week, as traffic increased 15 percent compared with the previous week.

• The Nintendo Wii and Uggs were the most popular product search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the week ended Dec. 15.

• The terms "wii," "nintendo wii," "ugg boots" and "uggs" were the top four product searches
• Nintendo Wii and Ugg searches made up 60 percent of the top 10 product searches for the week, making them the two hot product searches so far this season.