Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.
Email Alert

Internet Daily 
for Monday, November 26, 2001
by Frank Barnako CBS MarketWatch.com


Etail winners have solid foundation

Yahoo  and Microsoft  reported Monday dramatic year-on-year 
increases in online shopping over the holiday weekend.

Yahoo's Jennifer Dulsky, senior brand manager, said the number 
of transactions through her site was 75% greater compared to the 
weekend after Thanksgiving last year, while Jim Barr, 
Microsoft's general manager of commerce services, said online 
visits to MSN Shopping were 150% higher. Both executives said 
that while the overall number of selling merchants was 
comparable to last year, there are fewer "pure play" etailers 
and more in the way of traditional retailers, including 
Nordstrom  and Neiman Marcus.

In a similar vein, visits on Friday to Web sites set up by some 
other major brick-and-mortar retailers more than doubled from 
last year. "Five of the six top virtual department stores find 
their roots in strong brick-and-mortar brands," said Sean 
Kaldor, vice president of analytical services at 
Nielsen/NetRatings. Such a presence "has proven to be a 
successful online formula."

Amazon.com  was the sole Web-only company to be among the 
biggest draws. It had 1.7 million visitors this year, compared 
to 1.3 million last year. Still, this performance was more than 
five times the number drawn by even the biggest gainer among 
traditional retailers' sites, Wal-Mart, whose visitors totaled 
355,000, up 132% from a year ago. Other online winners from the 
"real" world included Target, Kmart, Sears Roebuck  and J.C. 
Penney.

Kaldor said 22% more home Internet users went online holiday 
shopping Friday, compared to the average for Monday through 
Thursday. But Friday's uptick was not as pronounced as the 27% 
increase seen last year, Kaldor said.

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AOL membership passes 32 million

AOL Time Warner  said Monday its global online service has more 
than 32 million subscribers. That's a gain of 7 million members 
in the past year. Barry Schuler, America Online's chairman, 
credited the company's new AOL 7.0 software for helping the 
average at-home user's online usage to rise to nearly 70 minutes 
a day. The access program has been downloaded more than 7 
million times since it was released last month. AOL also said 
its premium-priced service for high-speed broadband connectivity 
has met with "strong" consumer demand in 18 of Time Warner 
Cable's largest markets.

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eBay searches offline for customers

EBay  will use an eight-page printed catalog insert in 55 
newspapers across the nation this holiday season to draw traffic 
to its online auction sales. The company plans to distribute 23 
million copies, according to The Wall Street Journal. "What we 
know about the holidays is people traditionally shop in catalog 
format," Annette Goodwine, eBay's senior director of brand 
marketing, told the Journal. EBay is expected to spend $40 
million for advertising this quarter, including the catalog and 
television commercials broadcast on AOL Time Warner cable 
properties.

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