Yesterday, Facebook announced the acquisition of Instagram, a popular photo sharing network with over 30 million users, for $1 billion. Visits to the Instagram website have steadily increased over the past 24 weeks and reached 3.8 million last…

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With March Madness well underway and the Final Four squaring off on Saturday for a spot in the National Championship game, searches around ‘March Madness’ reached a record high the week ending March 17th, up 16% over the same week last yea…

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The holiday season is fast approaching and there are numerous commercials heavily promoting layaway as an option for consumers.

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Thanksgiving is only a few days away and aspiring chefs are hungrily searching online for holiday recipes. Searches for Thanksgiving and turkey recipes traditionally peak the week of Thanksgiving, indicating that recipe searchers procrastinate and wait until the last minute before planning their feast.

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Black Friday is almost upon us and the outlook is looking good for a positive start to the holiday season. The NRF predicts that 152 million people will shop over Black Friday weekend, up 10% from last year – a conservative estimate based up…

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Holiday retail sales for 2011 are expected to increase 2.8% to $465.6 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, lower growth than the 5.2% increase in sales from the 2010 holiday season. Last year, the increase in visits to online retailers was higher than the overall lift in sales as consumers researched products and store information as well as purchased holiday gifts. Last year, visits to the Retail 500 (excludes auctions, classifieds and rentals) increased during the kickoff of the holiday season, the weeks with Thanksgiving & Black Friday and Cyber Monday, increased 8% and 11% respectively. As we head into the holiday season, recent economic indicators like consumer confidence have declined, causing concern about potential spending power. However, traffic to online retailers has grown with visits up 10% year-over-year for the week ending October 23, 2011.

One driver behind the increased visits to the Retail 500 is the audience, which over-indexes against the population for the most affluent Mosaic Groups: Power Elite (over-indexes for household incomes of $125k and up), Flourishing Families (over-indexes for household incomes between $75k and $250k), Booming with Confidence (over-indexes for household incomes over $75k), Suburban Style (over-indexes for household incomes of $75k to $175k). These 4 Mosaic Groups represented 28% of the visits to the Retail 500 for the 12 weeks ending October 22, 2011. While there may be anxiety around consumers’ ability to spend during the holidays, purchases from affluent segments may help offset the decreased buying power of those with lower household incomes.

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As the 2012 automotive models continue to roll out throughout 2011, consumers in the market for a new vehicle are increasingly searching online for automotive makes and models. Online users have increased their share of overall vehicle make and model searches by 37% for the 4 weeks sending October 8, 2011 as compared to the same time frame 2 years ago.

Experian Hitwise and Experian Automotive have been working closely together to bridge the gap between consumers’ automotive interests online and their offline behaviors. During the second quarter of 2011, Ford was the most searched automotive manufacturer brand, with nearly 13% market share of branded automotive searches as compared to 2nd ranked Dodge with 8.4%. Ford also received the greatest number of new car registrations during the same time period, indicating strong interest online along with actual purchases offline.

There was much greater movement in branded searches during the second quarter among other manufacturers, with Kia, Cadillac, BMW, Volkswagen, and Mazda all moving up in rank by 2 spots or more. Searches for Kia showed strong performance in Q2 and jumped two places from 8th to 6th in branded searches, the 12th position last year. Additionally, there was an increase of 18% in new vehicle registrations for Kia in Q2 from the previous quarter.

When comparing market share of branded searches online with new car registration data, the market share both online and offline closely align for most vehicle brands. For Mazda, BMW, Kia, Subaru, and Jeep, the gap between market share of branded searches and market share of new car registrations were minimal, indicating that searches precluded actual purchase. Kia searches accounted for about 4% of the branded manufacturer searches and just over 4% of the new cars registered in the second quarter. The share of new vehicle registrations for Chevrolet and Toyota were both higher than the share of online searches.

The vehicle makes that received the highest relative change in new car registration for the second quarter also increased their share of brand searches substantially, with the exception of a few niche brands such as Lamborghini and Mini. Fiat experienced the largest increase in new car registrations in conjunction with a 72% increase in branded searches in the second quarter versus the previous quarter after their launch of the Fiat 500 in the US.

Thanks to Cristina Bell, Senior Analyst on the Custom Data & Analytics team for today’s analysis.

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On October 4th 2011 Apple announced the addition of the iPhone 4S to its product line which will be available to customers on October 12th. This was likely to the dismay of web users who have been anxiously awaiting Apple to announce that it would be releasing the iPhone 5 instead of an upgrade to the current iPhone.

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The popularity of flash sale websites with limited time & inventory offerings have grown exponentially over the two years. Online shoppers’ love for the thrill of snagging designer clothing, home décor, travel and even wine have caused visits to the category to increase 368% in July 2011 as compared to the same month two years [...]

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After months of speculation, the paywall for The New York Times went live at 2pm on Monday, March 28th, which limits online readers (non-print subscribers) to 20 articles each month. For smartphone and tablet applications, only the top news se…

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