It wasn’t supposed to be this way
More Americans were online in September, and traffic to such major retail sites as Amazon.com and Walmart.com increased, but Target.com traffic was flat in the first full month following a late August site relaunch, according to the most recent “Top 50 Web Properties” report from online measurement firm comScore.
Target.com ranked 45th on the September 2011 list with 25.7 million unique visitors compared with the same month the prior year when it ranked 42nd with 25.6 million unique visitors. Sometimes flat is a good thing if the market and other competitors are declining, but that isn’t the case in the online world. During September, comScore data shows the total online audience grew to 218.5 million unique visitors compared with 212.9 million the prior year. Capitalizing on the additional online traffic was Amazon.com, which saw a huge increase in unique visitors as its traffic increased to 103.7 million from 76.7 million. Walmart increased too, but not as sharply, rising to 38.3 million unique visitors from 35.9 million unique visitors.