Home renovations, food delivery, office supplies and exercise equipment filled the Aussies online shopping carts during the first wave of lockdown with Bunnings Warehouse snagging the top spot.
The home and garden retailer had the highest website traffic according to search data from online visibility analysis platform SEMrush, up 74 per cent year-on-year with 5.7 million visitors more than second place Amazon Australia.
Rounding out the top 10 were major food suppliers Woolworths and Coles, consumer chain stores Kmart and Big W, as well as home office suppliers JB Hifi and Officeworks.
“When it comes to seeing how the top retailers are stacking up in 2020, SEMrush has been able to track consumer behaviour and trends by analysing online searches from the past year with a noticeable difference during the peak lockdown period,” said SEMrush head of gobal marketing, Olga Andrienko.
Of the top 10 retailers, five were department stores, four electronic and office suppliers, and one home and hardware retailer, with JB Hifi experiencing an increase of 43 million visits year-on-year for the June period.
“Department stores made up the majority of the top 50 retailers, SEMrush’s data shows a clear trend in consumer preference towards at-home items with Bunnings, Spotlight and IKEA all experiencing significant spikes in website traffic during the past year,” said Andrienko.
During the Q2 period, there were a total of 633 million visits to department store websites, 413 million to electronics and office, and 410 million to home and hardware retailers.
“People are investing more in their homes be it from furniture and outdoor supplies for home improvements, or gadgets and tech to enhance lifestyle in lockdown and of course department stores. The data suggests people are looking for good quality products at affordable prices and they are spending their time online in a COVID-safe environment in order to do so,” said Andreinko.
“Changes in consumer preference is not only reflected in the website traffic, but also in the search volumes, with a significant reduction in searching for flights especially with searches relating to cheaper flight websites such as Webjet, AirAsia and Jetstar.”
There was also a significant increase in searches for outdoor accessories such as motorbikes, caravans and bikes mirroring the spikes in visitors to websites such as Bunnings, BCF and Rebel Sports.
Other key insights included:
Department Stores
● Department stores made up the majority of the top 50 retailers analysed
● In the past 3 months site traffic towards department stores surpassed any other sector with more than 63.5 million visits – a major 58% increase year on year. With these search numbers on the rise It’s clear people are looking for a one stop shop.
● There has been a total of 633 million visits for Q2
● Amazon Australia has seen an increase of 124% from June 2019 to June 2020
● From the same time period Kmart traffic is up 69%
● Even the online retailers that weren’t doing very well before such as Marks & Spencer which has been down -13% has seen a rise due to COVID up 7% in the last quarter.
● From Coles + Woolworths + Amazon + KMart + Target + Myer + David Jones – It’s clear people are looking for a one stop shop at the moment.
Electronics & Office
● Electronics have seen a total of 413 Million site visits in Q2 suggesting more and more people have turned to their trusty gaming devices to stay preoccupied during lockdown.
● JB hifi: +43M visits in Q2 compared to that of Q1
● EB Games: +11M visits in Q2 from Q1
Home & Hardware
● There has been an overall increase in visits within the Home & Hardware category with 410M visits in Q2 across ALL retailers.
● Bunnings.com.au has had a 75% spike in traffic year on year taking out the top spot to beat Amazon in the retail wars.
● Meanwhile Ikea has more than doubled its site traffic from June 2019 to June 2020
● Similarly, Spotlight had a 61% uptick in online traffic
Sales & Bargains
These websites had a total of 60M visits in Q2
● Despite some sites such as GraysOnline seeing a decline in site traffic (-79% YoY) other bargain stores such as Catch have been on the rise up by 20M visits in Q2.
● Catch received Christmas level traffic earlier this year during phase one of lockdown
Health & Beauty
These websites had a total 92M visits in Q2
● Chemist Warehouse experienced an increase of 21M visits in Q2 from Q1
● For beauty brands, Sephora saw a traffic increase of 70% in Q2 from Q1
Alcohol
● Visits to Dan Murphy’s website increased by 76% from June 19 to June 20
● Hellodrinks.com.au and Tipple.com.au started spending on search advertising
● The search advertising for bws.com.au increased by 5,778%.
● The search advertising for boozebud.com increased by 2,139%.
● And search advertising for danmurphys.com.au increased by 49%.
Other:
● Booktopia has had an additional 1.5M visits compared to 2019, and has had a traffic increase of 80% year on year
● Interestingly Anaconda site traffic has decreased by 33% year on year
