The WeBuyItGreen Eco Library, an information resource for green consumers and businesses, has published a new analysis of online retail traffic growth. Recent market research on consumer preference has indicated that consumer spending on green products may have leveled off during the recession because shoppers have become more cost-conscious. However, the WeBuyItGreen report suggests that this recessionary leveling effect upon green consumption may be milder in specific areas of online retail.

The analysis, which was conducted in early November, 2009, compares online traffic growth to green shopping websites with traffic growth to corresponding conventional shopping sites across four types of online retail: comparison shopping, department stores that offer a broad range of home and personal products, clothing, and beauty products. Only businesses that sell predominantly eco friendly products qualified as belonging to the green retail group in each of these categories.

The online traffic data for the study was gathered from Alexa, a service that ranks online traffic to specific websites using two variables, reach and page views. Reach reflects the percentage of total global internet users that visit a particular site, and page views reflect the percentage of global page views that are attributed to a particular site. Whereas reach gives us a snapshot of how many distinct users visit a site, page views are an indicator of how many pages these people view, which correlates with how much time each user spends on the site.

Alexa data has been criticized for inaccuracy in the past because of the difficulty of extrapolating traffic patterns from the comparatively small number of users who install the Alexa toolbar. Critics have argued that Alexa data inflates traffic rank of sites that are heavily visited by web-savvy users who have installed the Alexa toolbar. However, the WeBuyItGreen report maintains that problems regarding potential inaccuracy of Alexa data are mitigated in this study for the following reasons. First, Alexa no longer relies solely on their toolbar users as the sample from which traffic data are extrapolated. Second, there is no apparent reason that some of the companies compared in this study would be more heavily used by web savvy visitors than others. Third, because Alexa data is particularly susceptible to inaccuracy and manipulation for websites that receive less traffic, the sample used in this study is confined to relatively large retail sites. Fourth, the study seeks to identify broad trends across a number of sites rather than draw conclusions about a particular site. Inaccuracies that might apply to individual sites are less likely to affect broad trends.

The analysis of Alexa data indicates that during the recession, the traffic reach of the green retail group grew significantly more than that of the conventional retail group. The growth in page views was about the same for both groups. However, page view growth was skewed upward for the conventional group by a single company. When this company was excluded from the group, the page view growth for the green retail group significantly outpaced that of the conventional retail sites.

In light of limitations imposed by the method used to gather data in this study, the report acknowledges that the results are only suggestive. Nevertheless, the traffic analysis indicates that online growth in green retail traffic may have outpaced growth in traffic to traditional sites during the recession. The full report may be viewed at the WeBuyItGreen Eco Library.

Source: PRWeb