Back To College Market Fuels Growth In Internet Commerce & Traffic.

Millions of students returning to college nationwide re-energized Internet activity in August, according to the latest data released by comScore Networks and Diameter. A surge of 45% in the college-based Web audience drove a 2.3% increase in total U.S. Web users to 129 million from July to August, virtually restoring the domestic audience to its pre-summer level.

Among properties realizing the greatest overall increase in traffic were destinations such as Columbia House (+35%), GameSpy (+30%), Vivendi Universal (+15%) and Amazon.com (+12%). Such sites clearly cater to college-age audiences with music, gaming, entertainment and mass merchandise content.

“As would be expected, back-to-college means back to business for many companies,” said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks, “and the Internet again proves to be a serious channel for this critical shopping season. comScore and Diameter services continue to help clients to identify key consumer shopping and buying preferences, and to use that insight to drive real business growth and efficiency.”

Dramatic spikes in unique visitors from college computers were noted across a number of key categories:

Reflecting the broad need for return transportation to campus, student traffic took off at travel sites TravelNow.com (+85%), Greyhound.com (+50%), and Expedia.com (+32%)

Entertainment sites provided study breaks to far more students at musiccity.com (+161%), audiogalaxy.com (+89%) and mtv.com (+56%). Fortunately, many remained focused on the expected task of learning, with overall college traffic to education sites up 70%

College audience growth was markedly lower at Career (+26%) Automotive (+24%), and Home & Living (+17%) sites, suggesting that many returning students aren’t yet dealing with realities of life after graduation Although increases in college/university traffic were to be expected, some industry observers doubted that online commerce would reap corresponding sales growth in light of a soft economy. Indeed, online buying data uniquely available from comScore show that overall dollar sales across a broad sample of e-commerce sites declined by 2% from July to August, with smaller shopping baskets offsetting an increase of 3% in the number of online purchases.

However, deeper analysis of the August comScore data clearly suggests that at some sites, many students and their families opened their checkbooks when they opened their browsers.

For example, online apparel retailers – particularly those with value-priced merchandise – enjoyed dollar sales increases of 60% or more versus July. Some online music retailers saw sales jump from 8% to nearly 30%. And not surprisingly, stationery and office supply outlets enjoyed online sales growth as high as 68%, while at least one specialty retailer of textbooks and other college merchandise registered August sales over twenty times its July level.