Time-Starved Consumers Would Prefer to Give up Alcohol and Junk Food in Exchange for Three-Day Weekends All Year Long, According to Shopping.com Survey

Consumers Also Divulge the Best Place for Holiday Fruitcake…the Trash

09 November 2006

BRISBANE, Calif. – November 9, 2006 – -

When the holiday shopping season rolls around – and consumers are scrambling to find more time to buy gifts, plan parties and make trips back home – what would these crazed consumers be willing to trade away in order to get more time? According to a recent holiday shopping survey by Shopping.com, thirty-five percent of respondents said they’d give up alcohol in order to get a three-day weekend every week for a year, while 29 percent said they’d give up junk food.

“Our survey clearly showed that consumers want to gain back some of the time they spend on their busy lives – and that’s particularly true during the holiday season,” said Shannon Clouston, Chief Shopper for Shopping.com. “By finding, comparing and buying all of their holiday needs at Shopping.com, consumers can save time as well as money, giving themselves the gift of precious hours to devote to family and friends, without having to give up some of their guilty pleasures.”

What else did time-starved consumers reveal? The fate of this year’s holiday fruitcakes! Forty-seven percent of respondents said they would toss them in the trash without delay and only 11 percent said they’d make the time to re-gift the fruitcake to someone else.

A quarter of shoppers will make fifty percent of holiday purchases online Consumers who responded to the Shopping.com survey said they plan to go online to make many of their holiday purchases this year: Forty-six percent said they’ll buy about a quarter of their gifts and other holiday items using the Web, while 24 percent said at least half of their holiday buys will be made online.

Find everything you need, all in one place

Respondents said they have an average of six shopping Web sites stored in their Web browsers. Shopping.com offers 60 million products across more than 280 categories, giving consumers one easy destination where they can complete all their holiday shopping. Shoppers can easily compare a variety of products side-by-side, based on different criteria such as price, brand, style, even product features. Combined with unbiased consumer reviews from Epinions.com, expert reviews and third-party buying guides, Shopping.com puts all the essential information at shoppers’ fingertips, so they can make quick, but informed, decisions.

Half of the shoppers plan to start before Thanksgiving

Recognizing that preparing for the holidays takes time, consumers are also starting their shopping early. A majority of respondents – 46 percent – said that they would begin their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, while 22 percent said they’d start right after Thanksgiving. Only 20 percent identified themselves as last-minute holiday shoppers.

Shopping.com offers consumers several new time-saving features, making online shopping that much faster and easier during the holidays:

• “What’s Hot” – This home-page feature provides shoppers with a quick overview of the hottest products across 10 key categories, including electronics and housewares. With the scroll of a mouse, shoppers can see a range of product information – photos, pricing, consumer ratings, pros and cons.

• “Shop by Brand” – Shopping.com understands that everyone has favorite brands – whether they’re looking for running shoes, shampoo or jeans. The new “Shop by Brand” section gives shoppers one-click access to complete, well-organized virtual stores for all their favorite brand names.

• “Top 5” – No matter where you are on Shopping.com, it’s always easy to see the Top 5 products within a particular category, each with its own popularity score, based on what other Shopping.com customers are choosing. With one-click access to these top 5 products, shoppers are led to more relevant information - product details, ratings, consumer and expert reviews and price comparisons from our merchant partners – to help make the best informed purchasing decision.

Survey methodology: The Shopping.com holiday shopping survey of online consumers was conducted by Zoomerang in October 2006 and generated 1,850 responses. Seventy percent of respondents were female; ages of respondents ranged from 22 to 42. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they were married.

About Shopping.com

Shopping.com, an eBay company, pioneered online comparison shopping and today is one of the fastest growing shopping destinations on the Internet with items from thousands of trusted stores from across the Web. With a singular focus on shopping, Shopping.com offers shoppers easy-to-use search tools, engaging content, time-saving navigation, along with millions of product and merchant reviews from the Epinions community, all in one place. The Shopping.com Network powers the shopping experience for hundreds of websites. For more information, please visit www.shopping.com. ###

Press Contacts

Dariana Lau, Shopping.com

(650) 616-6637

dlau@shopping.com

Jillian Harkrader, Access Communications for Shopping.com

(415) 844-6234

jharkrader@accesspr.com

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