Exclusive: Gaming consoles and games most searched for products in entertainment retail

Nintendo DS games, PS3 and Xbox 360 were the three most searched-for entertainment products in July, according to a new report.

The Greenlight sector report into entertainment retail found that 78% of all searches that month were for these three terms, with 1.8m searches for Nintendo DS games, and 673,000 for both PS3 and Xbox 360. Meanwhile in social media, Xbox.com was the most-followed entertainment brand.

But overall the number of entertainment product searches was down by 15% to 14.6m in July, compared to 17.2m searches in April.

Amazon, Wikipedia and Play.com were the top sites to emerge in natural search. Amazon appeared top in 78% of searches, Wikipedia in 57% and Play.com in 55%. For 10% of searches, only 17 websites were visible.

The most visible advertisers using pay-per-click were Amazon, HMV and Very.

Within entertainment, gaming consoles and games were the most popular search category (1.8m searches for ‘Nintendo DS games’ alone in July, accounting for 15% of all searches in this area) followed by DVDs (900,000 searches in July), Blu-Ray DVDs (450,000) and CDs (301,000).

Simon Hollingsworth, lead researcher at Greenlight, said that while the assumption was that the summer was quieter, searches for entertainment products appeared to be strong, ahead of the autumn release of games including Halo: Reach, Pro Evolution Soccer 11, Fifa 11 and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

He said: “In a very aggressive market, where value for money is key, retailers must be price-competitive for new releases, ensuring they clearly set out price margins, initiate pre-order campaign strategies well in advance and feature unique selling points including ‘free delivery’ or ‘next day delivery’ in order to undercut and outcompete rivals.”

Greenlight also adds that in its experience, most entertainment-related searches took place at weekends, especially on Sundays. But most advertisers bid at a constant rate through the week – missing out on vital search traffic.