Group Buying Phenomenon Continues to Lure Hong Kong Shoppers Online

Group Buying Phenomenon Continues to Lure Hong Kong Shoppers Online

Visits by Hong Kong online shoppers spike by 1,620%
Time spent on group buying sites increases by 22%

Hong Kong, October 6, 2011 According to Experian Hitwise, visits by Hong Kong online shoppers to group buying sites have climbed by 1,620% in the past twelve months (Figure 1). The data also reveals that the average amount of time spent onthese sites has increased by 22% to 7 minutes and 14 seconds per visit.

Figure 1 : Hong Kong Group Buying Share of Visits to All Categories

 
Source: Experian Hitwise Hong Kong, September 2011

Leading the way among over 70 group buying sites are Groupon Hong Kong and Deals Yahoo HK, having captured visit shares of 36.1% and 29.8%, respectively, of total monthly visitors to group buying sites as of September 2011. The leaders are followed by competing local companies including BeeCrazy, FunShare.com and groupbuya.com (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Most Popular Websites in Hong Kong Group Buying ranked by Visit Share

Rank

Website

Visit Share

Rank Aug 11

Rank
Jul 11

Rank Jun 11

1

Groupon Hong Kong

36.1%

1

1

1

2

Deals Yahoo HK*

29.8%

2

2

2

3

BeeCrazy

  8.5%

3

3

3

4

FunShare.com

  4.3%

4

4

4

5

www.groupbuya.com*

  2.8%

6

5

5

6

GroupBuyer

  2.4%

9

7

6

7

GoBuya

  2.4%

7

6

7

8

Couppie

  2.3%

5

8

9

9

Travelfish

  2.2%

8

11

10

10

GigonZone

  1.4%

10

9

8

* These websites offer group buying service mainly by aggregating deals from other group buying portals such as BeeCrazy, Couppie, Funshare and GoBuya etc. Source: Experian Hitwise Hong Kong, Month of September 2011

“Despite the industry being concentrated at the top with two significant leaders, we’ve continued to see new local companies enter the market, creating a dynamic and increasingly competitive group buying environment that benefits online shoppers. In order to increase their visibility and grow market share, these companies will require accurate market and competitor insight, as well as capabilities to monitor search patterns in order to plan and execute an effective online marketing campaign,” said Graeme Beardsell, Chief Customer Development and Marketing Officer, Experian Asia Pacific. 

Visit times increase
Among the top five websites with the highest visits share in September, Groupon Hong Kong experienced the longest visit times, with visitors spending an average of just over 12 minutes on the site. Groupbuya.com, a local group buying site, ranked second in terms of visit time, with visitors spending nearly 7 minutes on the site in September (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Selected websites in Hong Kong Group Buying by Visit Time

Source: Experian Hitwise Hong Kong, September 2011

Search driving traffic to local players
Figures from week ending 24th September show that group buying sites including gobuya.com (7.7%), tuncow.com (6.5%), LaShou (2.1%), BeeCrazy (1.9%) and FunShare.com (1.5%) are seeing the most success in generating traffic from the search term, ‘group buying’ in Chinese.

Top search terms driving traffic to the Hong Kong group buying category over a rolling 12-week period ending 24th September include Groupon Hong Kong (3.3%), Groupon (3%),‘group buying’ in Chinese (2%), BeeCrazy (2%) and Groupbuya (2%).

Social networking and forums top drivers of traffic
Social networking and forums was one of the main drivers of traffic for Hong Kong online users to group buying websites in September 2011, accounting for 21.6% of referral traffic.

Groupon Hong Kong continues to make the most of social media, driving 23.8% of traffic to its site in September, in particular Facebook taking 12.4% from within. They are also seeing success through the use of search engines, accounting for 12% of traffic driven to the site.

"It’s clear from the data that the local players are taking advantage of key search terms and optimising their websites in order to increase search engine visibility. With the more well-known brands, such as Groupon, receiving traffic from social networking sites such as Facebook, and from consumers going direct, this is a good approach for local players to capture the share of online users who are still using search engines to research group buying sites in Hong Kong," said Beardsell.

END

Notes to editor:

· All categories – All local and international websites surfed by Internet users in Hong Kong, categorised by various topics of interest

· Share of visits – A visit is defined by a series of one or more page requests by a visitor without 30 consecutive minutes of inactivity

About Experian Hitwise
Experian Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Experian Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive Web sites and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Experian Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with Internet service providers around the world, Experian Hitwise uses its patented methodology to anonymously capture the online usage, search and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy-to-use, Web-based service designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Experian Hitwise, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at http://www.hitwise.com/hk

For up-to-date analysis of online trends, visit the Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com

About Experian Marketing Services
Experian Marketing Services delivers best-in-breed data, analytics and platforms into multiple regions around the globe. It is focused on helping marketers more effectively target and engage their best customers through email,
digital advertising, customer data management, customer and competitive insight, data enrichment and list rental, modeling and analytics, and strategic consulting. Through these capabilities, Experian Marketing Services enables organizations to encourage brand advocacy, create measurable return on investment and significantly improve the lifetime value of their customers.

About Experian
Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 80 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2011 was US$4.2 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 41 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; California, US; and São Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.

For more information on Experian Asia Pacific, visit http://www.experian.com.hk

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Contacts:
Margaret Lam
Experian Public Relations
+852 2839 5276
margaret.lam@hk.experian.com

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