Gas prices hit $3 a gallon and continue to rise as they catch up with record high oil prices. We saw a 6 fold increase in the share of US Internet searches for “gas prices” last week and the term hit its highest peak since May. A search term suggestion report reveals that (as you’d expect) searchers were looking for “lowest gas prices near you” and “cheap gas”.

Bill has done some great analysis in the past on the impact of gas prices on search behavior and visits to online retailers. I decided to focus on who is concerned most about rising gas prices using our demographic and lifestyle data.
The top website receiving visits from US Internet searches for “gas prices” is GasBuddy.com so I focussed on the profile of visitors to that website to find out who is most concerned with rising gas prices.
Looking at GasBuddy.com’s demographic profile, you might jump to the conclusion that male silver surfers are most concerned about rising gas prices. In the four weeks ending 10th November 2007, 44% of visits to GasBuddy.com were from those aged 55+ and 60% were male.
However, the share of US Internet visits from those aged 55+ is down from 60% in the four weeks to 13th October. The biggest increase came from those aged 18-24. In the past four weeks 26% of visitors to GasBuddy.com were aged 18-24, more than twice (167% more) that in the four weeks to 13th October. While the website’s visitors continue to be mostly male (60%) there were 20% more female visitors in the past four weeks than in the four weeks to 13th October.
The Mosaic data is to me the most interesting. I had a hypothesis (err… bias). I thought that groups that are most likely to own hybrids cars and fewer cars per household would be least concerned with rising gas prices. As is often the case, reality proved to be more complex.
There was no correlation between the visits by Mosaic Group and the factors I looked at under car ownership (including propensity to own a premium SUV, large SUV, small car, alternative power car, 1, 2 or 3+ cars per household). However, I did notice Affluent Suburbia and Small Town Contentment, the two groups most likely, according to offline statistics collected by Experian, to own three or more cars were two of the three groups over-indexed on the GasBuddy.com website. These groups were 26% and 22% more likely than average for the US offline population to own three or more cars. They are also more likely to own a large SUV. However, Affluent Suburbia are also likely to own hybrids.
The third group that was over-indexed on GasBuddy.com was Struggling Societies. Households in this group were 164% more likely to be on the website than average for the online population – and accounted for 21% of the website’s visits in the past four weeks. This group is more likely than average to own one small car.
What does this tell us? Online retailers eager to promote online shopping as a way to save money on gas can target both ends of the spectrum. The issue of rising gas prices is of greatest concern to the wealthy with many cars (including premium SUVs and hybrids) to the less affluent. However, it is likely the latter who will be most interested in saving a few bucks on gas this holiday season!