Michael Jackson and Balloon Boy Top Costume Searches

Visits to online costume retailers up 48 percent year over year; BuyCostumes.com is top visited costume Web site

New York, N.Y., Oct. 29, 2009 - The search terms "michael jackson costume" and "balloon boy costume" were the most popular among all U.S. Internet searches that contained the phrase "costume" for the four weeks ending Oct. 24, 2009, according to Experian Hitwise.

The Web sites receiving the most traffic from the term "michael jackson costume" were BuyCostumes.com, Brandsonsale.com and Amazon.com. Other popular costume searches included "tinkerbell", "catwoman" and "poison ivy". Top adult costume searches included "snow white", "cat", "fairy", "mermaid" and "care bear".

Top visited online costume retail Web sites

BuyCostumes.com was the most visited Web site among a custom category of 10 leading online costume retailers for the week ending Oct. 24, 2009. The Web site received 42.94 percent of all U.S. traffic to the custom category. Following BuyCostumes.com was the Costume Express Web site, which received 13.38 percent of visits. The Spirit Halloween Web site was next, receiving 10.50 percent. Additionally, Buycostumes.com has been the most visited Web site in the Shopping and Classifieds - Apparel and Accessories category for the past five weeks. Furthermore, traffic to the top 27 Web sites in this custom category increased 48 percent for the week ending Oct. 24, 2009, versus the same week last year.

Other trends include:

* The term "halloween costumes" was the No. 2 overall paid search term for the four weeks ending Oct. 24, 2009
* U.S. paid searches year over year on "halloween costumes for kids," "cheap halloween costumes" and "costumes for halloween" increased 102 percent, 42 percent and 46 percent, respectively
* U.S. searches on "halloween costumes for kids" increased 116 percent for the four weeks ending Oct. 24, 2009, versus the same time period last year
* U.S. searches on "pet costumes" increased 97 percent for the four weeks ending Oct. 24, 2009, versus the same time period last year
* U.S. searches on "cheap halloween costumes" increased 26 percent for the four weeks ending Oct. 24, 2009, versus the same time period last year

Source: Experian Hitwise