comScore Media Metrix examines the impact of Father’s Day on ecommerce and online retail traffic.

Like most holidays, Father’s Day causes notable spikes in online retail traffic and sales as sons and daughters seek gifts and greetings for dads everywhere. During the week of Father’s Day in 2004, which fell on June 20, traffic to retail sites reached its highest point of the month at 83.6 million visitors. While its web impact is similar to that of most holidays, Father’s Day, like Mother’s Day, is unique because visitors are seeking gifts for a very particular demographic -- in this case driving sales and traffic to “niche” categories that appeal more to fathers.    

In 2004, shoppers turned to computers and consumer electronics as gifts for dad. In fact, the most visited online retail category for the week that ended on Father’s Day, June 20, was Computer Software with 22.7 million visitors, up seven percent from the previous week. Sales in this category jumped 26 percent from the previous week to reach $26.3 million. 

Meanwhile, total sales in the Consumer Electronics category grew 17 percent to $64.9 million for the week that ended on June 20, 2004. eBay and Best Buy maintained their top spots in terms of traffic, but the remaining top five Consumer Electronics sites for the week were all wireless providers, indicating that consumers were perhaps looking to purchase phones, pagers and other mobile technologies as gifts for dad. During that week, Cingular Wireless was the third most visited site in the category with 1.9 million visitors, following by AT&T Wireless with 1.7 million visitors and T-Mobile with 1.4 million visitors. 

While electronics-related categories were hot, the top-gaining category for sales during the week of Father’s Day 2004 was Sports and Fitness. Sales for the week were up 81 percent to $11.6 million over the $55.6 million posted during the previous week, which ended June 13. Traffic to websites selling golf products, always a popular purchase for dads, jumped significantly. Golfsmith.com and Golfballs.com saw the highest traffic gains in the category, jumping 344 percent and 326 percent respectively. 

Although not as prominently as for Mother’s Day, traffic and sales in the Flowers, Gifts and Greetings category remained solid for the Father’s Day week in 2004. Category sales reached $42.6 million, a 106 percent climb over the previous week, but far less than the $114 million spent during the week of Mother’s Day 2004. The major difference between the two holidays is clearly flowers, which is standard for mothers and not so common for fathers. During the week of Mother’s Day, three of the top five most visited properties were flower related. For the week of Father’s Day, only one flower site -- 1-800-Flowers.com -- cracked the top five. 

As expected, what drives Flowers, Gifts and Greetings during Father’s Day are Greetings. For the week including Father’s Day 2004, American Greetings held the top spot in the category with 4.4 million visitors, a 57 percent spike in traffic over the previous week. The American Greetings property includes popular online ecards sites such as those by BlueMountain and E-Greetings. Hallmark came in at number two with 1.6 million visitors -- a 33 percent increase over the previous week. 

While Father’s Day causes some unordinary online retail sales and traffic patterns, the holiday does provide retailers insight into what products are appealing to men. Retailers should look at this holiday as a barometer to measure the habits of male consumers ages 18 and over and use this to attract this audience year-round.

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