Nielsen//NetRatings, an Internet audience measurement and analysis firm, reports that online consumers are flocking to shopping comparison sites to research products, prices, and merchants. More than 21 million online users, or 16 percent of active U.S. Internet users, visited one or more comparison shopping sites in August 2003 at work and at home. Leading the rapidly growing set of shopping advisors, Shopping.com (formerly DealTime) attracted 11.9 million unique visitors from home and work during August 2003. BizRate Shopping garnered 5.9 million visitors during the same month. The third most popular shopping comparison site was NexTag, drawing in 4.6 million consumers. PriceGrabber grew 81 percent during the past year to attract 3.9 million shoppers. The ten top comparison sites as a group grew 34 percent from August 2002 to August 2003, as more consumers used multiple comparison shopping sites in August 2003.

Press Release in PDF format: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_031013_us.pdf