Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩), the nation’s largest online auctioneer, yesterday published the eight most popular sectors targeted by keyword searches related to consumer vouchers.
At the top of the list was travel, followed by retail, consumer electronics, automobiles, beauty, e-commerce and education, Yahoo-Kimo said. Entertainment came in last.
Travel-related companies were especially aggressive in marketing promotions for consumer vouchers to lure shoppers during the Lunar New Year holidays, it said.
“Local shoppers are becoming increasingly shrewd as they go online in pursuit of voucher-related deals to maximize their NT$3,600,” said Frank Chen (陳建銘), general manager of Yahoo-Kimo’s sales group.
“A series of keyword searches related to hotels, accommodations and plane tickets during the nine-day vacation made travel the single most searched for industry,” he said.
Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairman Chen Tain-jy (陳添枝) said on Wednesday that as of Monday, a total of NT$38 billion in consumer vouchers had been cashed, or 46.7 percent of the amount distributed.
Yahoo-Kimo’s statistics indicated that 40 percent of online shoppers polled had not spent their vouchers.
Chen said he was impressed with the creativity of Internet users. Voucher promotion searches ranged from deals on renting bicycles to tour Taiwan and fortune-telling to artificial insemination, he said.
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