Online traffic to the top 500 retail sites monitored by Experian Marketing Services increased 27 percent on Christmas Day 2012 compared to 2011. The top retail sites received more than 115.5 million total U.S. visits. Online traffic was up 10 percent for the seven preceding  weeks compared with a year earlier.


Amazon remained the top visited site among retailers for this past week ending Dec. 22, 2012 and was also the top visited site on Christmas Day. Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Macys, Sears, Fandango, Kohls.com, Apple Store and JC Penney round out the top 10 most visited sites.

Tablets dominated the top product search lists for the week as they did the entire holiday season. Apple iTunes site visits increased 193 percent and Apple.com visits increased 155 percent on Christmas Day 2012 vs. Christmas Eve 2012. The top product search terms sending traffic to the Apple.com site were iPod Nano, iPad Mini and iPad 4.

 

Amazon.com visits increased 24 percent on Christmas Day 2012 vs. Christmas Eve 2012 as the top product search terms sending traffic to their site were Amazon Kindle, Kindle Fire and Kindle.


Also seeing growth were gift card searches as the year-over-year total search volume for gift card variations increased 6.1 percent this year compared to 2011. The big spike in searches happened last week (as online shoppers passed shipping deadlines). Below are the top 10 gift card searches for last week.