Karen Dearne | August 20, 2008
CASH-STRAPPED shoppers are scouring the internet for news of cheap food and petrol.
No good deals on grocerychoice.gov.au
Hitwise recorded a momentary spike in traffic to consumer website GroceryChoice after its launch two weeks ago.
The $13 million watchdog site jumped to second place in the online monitoring company's shopping/grocery and alcohol category on the back of blanket coverage.
"The news around the launch drove more than 64 per cent of the visits generated by the search term 'grocery choice' to the website," Hitwise research director Alan Long said yesterday.
"It rapidly became the most popular search term, although there was confusion between GroceryChoice and FuelWatch, with some people expecting the new initiative to follow the 'watch' naming convention.
"However, as the price pressure came off, we noticed a decline in interest," he said.
Mr Long said that, although the site took 37 per cent of the category market share the day after the launch, it dropped to about 0.5 per cent this week. He does not expect the site to regain ground against the nation's largest supermarket and liquor store websites.
The Rudd Government has flagged that the site may be refined to provide more helpful advice.
Mr Long said escalating petrol prices fuelled searches for information about alternate fuels and hybrid cars in June and July. "When petrol broke through the $1.40 per litre mark, the volume of searches on alternatives went up by nearly 300 per cent," he said.
Mr Long said the WA Government's FuelWatch website had benefitted from talk of the proposed federal FuelWatch site.
"It's clear people have strongly identified with the term, and are following up as the program continues to be discussed in the media," he said.