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 |
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 |
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.
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