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Chapter 2 E-commerce fundamentals 63

Box 2.1 Resources for analysing the online marketplace

Unique visitors There is a wealth of research about current Internet usage and future trends which
Individual visitors to a site strategists can use to understand their marketplace. In Table 2.2, we summarize a selec-
measured through
cookies or IP addresses tion of free and paid for services which can be used for online marketplace analysis.
on an individual These resources can be used to assess the number of people searching for information
computer.
and the popularity of different types of sites measured by the number of unique visitors.
E-consultancy (www.e-consultancy.com) provides a summary of many of the latest
research from these sources together with its own reports such as the Internet
Statistics compendium.

Table 2.2 Research tools for assessing your e-marketplace

Service Usage

1. Alexa (www.alexa.com). Free tool, see Free service owned by Amazon which
also www.compete.com. The new Google provides traffic ranking of individual sites
Trends for Websites compared to all sites. Works best for sites in
(http://trends.google.com/websites, top 100,000. Sample dependent on users of
Figure 2.4) gives this information using a the Alexa toolbar.
larger sample size.
2. Hitwise (www.hitwise.com). Paid tool, Paid service available in some countries to
but free research available at compare audience size and search and site
http://weblogs.hitwise.com. usage. Works through monitoring IP traffic to
different sites through ISPs.
3. Netratings (www.netratings.com). Paid Panel service based on at-home and at-work
tool. Free data on search engines and users who have agreed to have their web
intermediaries available from press release usage tracked by software. Top rankings on
section. site gives examples of most popular sites in
several countries.
4. Comscore (www.comscore.com). A similar panel service to Netratings, but
Paid tool. Free data on search engines focusing on the US and UK. A favoured tool
and intermediaries available from press for media planners.
release section.

5. ABCE Database (www.abce.org.uk) The Audit Bureau of Circulation (Electronic)
Free tool. (Choose ABCE Database.) gives free access to its database of portals
(not destination sites) that have agreed to
have their sites audited to prove traffic vol-
umes to advertisers.
6. Search keyphrase analysis tools. Tools such as the Google Keyword tool and
Compilation available from Google Traffic Estimator can be used to
www.davechaffey.com/seo-keyword-tools. assess the popularity of brands and their
products reflected by the volume of search
terms typed into Google and other search
engines. The Yahoo! Site Explorer can be
used to assess links between sites.
7. Forrester (www.forrester.com). Paid Offers reports on Internet usage and best
research service. Some free commentary practice in different vertical sectors such as
and analysis within blogs financial services, retail and travel. Free
(http://blogs.forrester.com). research summaries available in press
release section and on its Marketing blog
(http://blogs.forrester.com).