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Chapter 2 E-commerce fundamentals
Box 2.1
Resources for analysing the online marketplace
Unique visitors
Individual visitors to a site measured through
cookies or IP addresses on an individual
computer.
There is a wealth of research about current Internet usage and future trends which strategists can use to understand their marketplace. In Table 2.2, we summarize a selec-
tion of free and paid for services which can be used for online marketplace analysis. These resources can be used to assess the number of people searching for information
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.comwebsites, 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.comseo-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.
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