The analysis coincides with the release of Nielsen’s Fourth Screen Network Audience Report for Q2 2011, which measures the impact of advertising in places like malls, movie theaters, gas stations, bars and more. The report included audience measurement for three U.S. mall advertising video networks and found that malls attract a younger, predominantly female audience than other place-based ad networks. In fact, among consumers 18+, mall video networks attract the highest percentage of female viewers (57%) of any tracked location-based network genre, and the majority of mall viewers (55%) fall within the 18-34 demographic. Incidentally, more than one-fifth of tracked mall goers are aged 12 to 17.

“Malls represent a shopper’s dream come true, and they might offer the same for advertisers,” said Paul Lindstrom, SVP for Nielsen’s On Location service. “Not only is their audience unique from other location-based networks but also they are more likely to spend and engage across the board outside of the mall.”

Highlights of Nielsen’s “State of the Media: The Social Media Report”

• Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online, now accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet
• At over 53 billion total minutes during May 2011, Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other website
• Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience from a year ago
• Nearly 40 percent of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone
• Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile Internet
• 70 percent of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12 percent more likely than the average adult Internet user
• Across a sample of 10 global markets, social networks and blogs are the top online destination in each country, accounting for the majority of time spent online and reaching at least 60 percent of active Internet users

For a more in-depth look at the social media landscape and audience, view the complete State of the Media: The Social Media Report. 

Matthew Dodd, Senior VP of Research and analytics EMEA

E-commerce in the U.K. is booming. More than eight out of 10 of the active online population – 31.6 million people – visited at least one of the U.K.’s top 200 e-commerce sites in August 2010, according to Nielsen’s latest E-commerce Landscape Report.

What’s more, 16 percent of shopping visits ended in a purchase, with 89 million transactions resulting from the month’s 546 million shopping visits.

Conversion rates for the top 200 e-commerce sites showed strong performances – all above 15 percent – from Domino’s Pizza, Amazon, Interflora and QVC. Cut by category, we found decent conversion rates for ‘catalogue-clothing’ sites – Next, Freemans, Kaleidoscope and Bon Prix – all between 9-15 percent; whereas supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer – grouped somewhat lower.

When it comes to spending, the most lucrative e-commerce category is electronic equipment. On average, respondents from our sample of 8,500 Britons spent more on electronic goods – £156 each – than on any other category in August. Amazon, visited by 36% of people shopping for electronic equipment, was the leading retailer in the category. FMCG shopping was the next-biggest spending category, with people purchasing an average £129 of groceries online in the month.

Around a quarter of the U.K.’s 50 most-popular sites are e-commerce sites – a ratio that has been maintained for the last three years. The most popular is eBay, with 17.7m unique U.K. visitors in August, putting it ahead of Amazon, Apple, Tesco and Argos.

Finally, looking at attitudes, the main reason for shopping online was ‘cheaper prices,’, given by 57 percent of respondents, and the ‘ability to shop at any time’ (32%), but an uncompromising 29 percent said ‘not having to deal with sales staff’ was one of their three biggest motivators.

The way consumers shop for everyday products continues its transformation towards the Web. In 2008, online retail accounted for approximately 7% of total retail sales in the U.S, with 1.5% of consumer packaged goods (CPG) spending done on the Web.

In the future, your children will likely conduct the majority of their shopping online. While online shopping accounts for a modest percentage of today’s sales, it is growing rapidly – Nielsen estimates that online CPG sales alone increased 25-30% between 2004 and 2008. And there are compelling reasons to believe that growth will continue, as overall online sales are projected to increase almost 200 percent between 2008 and 2012.

Shopping Evolution Centers on Convenience, Choice and Value

Shopping has evolved along three dimensions, with each new phase increasing consumer convenience, choice and value – the three main reasons consumers shop online today. Online shopping redefines convenience and choice and equips consumers with unprecedented way to seek value.

Convenience – online is a simpler, faster, more hassle-free way to shop for frequently purchased products.

Choice – online offers more variety, which services like Peapod’s “endless aisles” clearly demonstrates.

Value – while value isn’t the primary reason most consumers shop for “everyday” products online today, it will become increasingly important as e-commerce becomes more mainstream. Tools to rapidly compare product prices already exist and online coupon sites have become the rage in the down economy.

Smaller, Niche Retailers Can Reap the Benefits of an Online Presence

Whether searching for solutions to a specific need, directly accessing retailer Web sites or deciding to click on an advertisement or link, consumers have far more control over what they are or are not exposed to online than offline. This offers smaller brands the opportunity to generate an online presence that is effectively larger than their big brand counterparts are, while serving up compelling messages and undercutting leading brand prices – all at the point of purchase.

Take the beauty care category as an example. Boutique retailers with fewer stores and lighter foot traffic than the large offline chains are as readily accessible on the Web as a Walmart or Target, which sometimes do not carry the leading offline beauty care brands on their Web sites.

What is interesting to note though, is that the online commercial challenge for leading consumer brands has less to do with the “long tail” than with the collapse of physical structures that literally help distance leading brands from smaller brands offline. It is not the number of brands available online that matters, but that there is less separation between them, which levels the playing fields, creating a flatter, broader marketplace for everyday brands.

To learn more about digital opportunities for leading brands, download Building Great Brands in the Digital Age: Guidelines for Developing winning Strategies.

I was very interested to hear the news yesterday that Amazon had acquired Zappos for $847 million in cash and stock. Since Zappos founder Tony Hsieh asked and answered some of his own questions about the deal in a letter to employees so I thought it’d be useful to engage in a Q&A with myself about the deal.

1. Why did Amazon buy Zappos?
A: Two numbers answer that succinctly: About 5 percent of Amazon’s sales are apparel/footwear sales, compared with 97 percent of Zappos’ sales (according to June 2009 data from our retail tracking service). Simply put, Amazon has not dominated apparel sales as it has most other categories online. While Zappos isn’t biggest seller of apparel/footwear on the Web, it is the largest of Internet pure play retailers. More importantly, Zappos has developed a reputation for customer service (Amazon’s priority one according to founder Jeff Bezos) that will only improve Amazon’s already strong standing amongst online shoppers. More than 1 million people follow Zappos on Twitter (a cornerstone of their customer service), far beyond any Twitter account managed by Amazon.

2: Did Amazon pay too much?
A: I’m not a financial analyst, but the online apparel category is the largest online merchandise category, expected to grow to $41.8 by 2012. For Amazon not be a formidable player in this space is nearly unthinkable for the company that sees itself as the World’s Biggest Store. Amazon has tried to answer Zappos with the launch of shoe and handbag site Endless.com, but was never able to materially chip away at Zappos’ dominant position. Endless.com registered about one fourth the traffic that Zappos did in June 2009.

3: Why didn’t a company like Wal-Mart or Target buy Zappos?
A: Wow, another great question, Ken! I’m sure that this notion was entertained by the big brick-and-mortar retailers, but the reality is that companies like Wal-Mart and Target have their best online opportunities run through their stores. The fact that they have thousands of stores throughout the country is a huge asset to their online businesses that a big pure play purchase such as Zappos might be distracting to their longer term success. I do wonder, though, if Amazon’s decision to buy Zappos could have been at least partly driven by a fear that this might happen.

4: Beyond merchandise sales, how do Amazon and Zappos fit together?
A: Amazon and Zappos have relatively similar customer bases, although Amazons’ is substantially larger (60M uniques per month vs. 4.1M uniques for Zappos in June 2009). Zappos’ customer base does skew a bit more female (69% compared with Amazon’s 55%) and a little younger, largely a function of the merchandise offered by Zappos. The most telling statistic is that in June of 2009, 77 percent of Zappos shoppers also shopped at Amazon.

5: Amazon has said that it will run Zappos as a separate brand. Is this smart? What do you think that Amazon should do in the longer term?
A: Zappos elicits more passion from its customers than any other brand that I can think of, online or offline, something my colleague Pete Blackshaw has documented for some time. Amazon would have been insane to scuttle the brand. In the long run, it becomes more interesting. I think that Amazon will benefit from the Zappos halo, and vice versa. Amazon can learn from Zappos’ innovation around customer service and marketing. Zappos can learn from Amazon’s technology and database marketing. In five years, I’d say that it’s even money that Amazon looks more like Zappos than the other way around. As to how they brand it, I’m not willing to lay odds either way.

But it was Bath & Body Works’ website – ranked ninth, with 3.56 million unique visitors – that showed the most impressive year-over-year growth: 39%. 

American Eagle (+25%) and Gap (+23%) also logged impressive gains over November 2007.

The top 10 apparel and beauty online shopping destinations, ranked unique visitors in November, are below.

Read the full article on InternetRetailer.com.

Metrostyle (23.6% conversion rate), QVC (21.6% conversion rate), Office Depot (21.6% conversion rate), L.L. Bean (21.5% conversion rate), Tickets.com (20.1% conversion rate), Blair.com (18.9% conversion rate), Lands End (18.4% conversion rate), 1800flowers.com (17.8% conversion rate), and The Sportsman’s Guide (16.8% conversion rate) rounded out the top ten.

Top online retailers in ten key product categories, ranked by purchases and customer numbers in November, are below.

Read the full article on InternetRetailer.com.

Already this year, Nielsen witnessed significant year-over-year (ending September 2008) growth in online activities with increases in time spent daily on videos (+46%), blogs (+20%), and e-commerce sites (+17%).

Expect this trend to continue, as well as increases in newer in-home entertainment options such as video vending.

But don’t expect more time spent at home to trigger increased book sales.

Technology-driven gadgets, gizmos, and games will dominate spare-time activities, while U.S. book sales will remain essentially flat, with a modest 1.5% unit growth rate.

Look for a rise, however, in self-help books, as out-of-work consumers look to rediscover themselves.

Read Nielsen’s complete 2009 Industry Outlook in “Consumer Insight.”

View the latest issue of “Consumer Insight.”