During the holiday shopping season, Shopping.com, the leading online comparison shopping site, experienced record-breaking traffic to its merchants. This season, the site also experienced the busiest day in company history on Monday, December 11, with 46 percent growth in traffic to merchants year-over-year.

Seasonal increases in traffic began on November 13 and are expected - with stores offering post-holiday sales, as well as shoppers redeeming gift cards - to remain strong throughout January. In fact, though traffic dropped to normal off-season levels from December 22-25, traffic increased to higher than normal levels from December 26-28 during post-holiday shopping. Merchant traffic for the post-holiday period saw a 46 increase year-over-year, compared to the same period in 2005.

"The significant jump in traffic to our merchants this season demonstrates the inherent value of our comparison-shopping model," said Josh Silverman, general manager of Shopping.com. "Today's net-savvy consumers use our site to save time and simplify their shopping so they can quickly find the best deal on gifts of every kind. It's like shopping every mall in America simultaneously, all from the comfort and convenience of your computer."

The 2006 holiday season reinforced a shift in the types of products sought on Shopping.com. While traditional online categories, such as consumer electronics and computers, remained highly popular, emerging categories, including home and garden, clothing and accessories and kids and family saw tremendous activity this season. Merchant traffic within Shopping.com's home and garden category grew by 40 percent year-over-year, while clothing and accessories and kids and family grew by 27.5 percent and 37 percent respectively.

Holiday 2006 Traffic on Shopping.com

• Traffic spikes on Shopping.com began on November 13. Over the past three years, the traffic spike has continued to occur earlier in the holiday season. In 2005, the holiday rush began on November 22.
• Cyber Monday, November 27, 2006, showed merchant traffic increases of approximately 40 percent, year-over-year.
• However, December 11, 2006, not Cyber Monday, was the busiest day this season, reaching a 46 percent increase in merchant traffic year-over-year.
• Starting with Black Friday 2006, more shoppers visited Shopping.com each day than the busiest day of 2005, which was Cyber Monday, November 28, 2005.
• Mondays dominated holiday traffic. Prior to Thanksgiving, Mondays were the biggest online shopping day of the week; that pattern continued both on Cyber Monday and the two following Mondays.

Popular Holiday 2006 Products
With 60 million products and more than 40 million unique online visitors globally per month, the types of shopping searches conducted on Shopping.com serve as a good barometer of the online shopping landscape.

Top products on Shopping.com this holiday season (November and December):

Electronics

• Apple iPod nano and iPod Video
• PlayStation 3 video game console and PlayStation Portable video game console
• Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console
• Nintendo Wii video game console
• Garmin StreetPilot c330 GPS Receiver
• Samsung 42 inch HDTV Plasma TV

Toys

• TMX Tickle Me Elmo
• Disney Pixar Cars Race Track Playset
• Dora the Explorer Talking Kitchen Furniture
• Hasbro Fur Real Friends Butterscotch Plush Pony
• Hasbro Easy-Bake Oven
• Lego Star Wars Jabba's Sail Barge

For the Home

• Dirt Devil Kone Bagless Vacuum
• Cuisinart 12-Cup Coffee Maker
• George Foreman G5 Indoor Grill
• Zojirushi Home Bakery Bread Machine
• Amana Easy Reach Refrigerator
• Hamilton Beach 6-Quart Slow Cooker

Clothing/Accessories

• Ugg Women's Boots
• Nike Air Max 360 Running Shoes for Men
• Vans Slip on Sneakers for Kids
• Michael Kors Kors Sloan Sport Suede Boot for Women
• Spy Astro Sunglasses
• Citizen Calibre Watch for Men

Sports and Outdoors

• Salomon Performa 7.5 Alpine Men's Ski Boot
• Burton Women's Feel Good Snowboard
• North Face Apex Bionic Men's Jacket
• Coleman Golfcat Golf Cart Heater
• Bowflex Sport Home Gym
• Chicago Bears Brian Urlacher Replica Jersey

About Shopping.com
Shopping.com, an eBay company, pioneered online comparison shopping and today is one of the fastest growing shopping destinations on the Internet with items from thousands of trusted stores from across the Web. With a singular focus on shopping, Shopping.com offers shoppers easy-to-use search tools, engaging content, time-saving navigation, along with millions of product and merchant reviews from the Epinions community, all in one place. The Shopping.com Network powers the shopping experience for hundreds of websites. For more information, please visit www.shopping.com.