“Apple Computer Inc. maintained its lead in the number of unique visitors to computer hardware e-commerce sites for December, with 21.71 million visitors, 24% more than the 17.54 million visitors to second-ranked Dell Inc., Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. reports. Hewlett Packard Co. came in third in December, with 12.22 million visitors, followed by Sun Microsystems Inc., 4.16 million; IBM Corp., 2.6 million; Gateway Inc., 2.41 million; Seiko Epson Corp., 1.44 million; XM Satellite Radio, 1.42 million; palmOne Inc., 1.42 million; and PlayStation.com, 1.37 million,” InternetRetailer.com reports. “Nielsen/NetRatings reports that Apple also led in the average amount of time per visit, with 31 minutes, 5 seconds, followed by IBM, 26 minutes, 53 seconds; and Dell, 22 minutes, 47 seconds.”
Full article here.
Actual email just received from Apple (no joke):
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To Our Valued Apple Customer:
Thank you for your recent order!
Apple is very excited about the popularity of the new Mac mini and we want every customer who ordered one to be absolutely satisfied.
We want to clarify some confusion regarding the speed of the SuperDrive that comes with your computer. For a short time, the Apple Store online incorrectly referenced a SuperDrive burning speed of 8x. The actual recording speed is up to 4x for supported DVD recordable media on Mac mini. The drive writes to CD-R at 16x and CD-RW at 8x.
Please contact us at the number below if you have any questions or concerns:
1-800-676-2775 Monday thru Friday 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. central time and Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. central time.
If, as a result of this information, you wish to cancel or return your order, please let our representative know when you call.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Apple Customer Support
I think it’s been stated that the 8X listing was a typo. Unfortunate, but a mistakes happen. What else can Apple do but offer the customer the option to cancel or return? Seems fair to me.
I think the point is, would Gateway or Dell even offer that kind of contact and customer service? I higly doubt it. Not unless you contacted them first and bitched up a storm over it. I had a similar experience last Spring when I started putting in my order for my Dual 1.8GHz G5. My card didn’t go through. I had forgotten a payment I made, and it put the balance in my account below what I needed to buy the G5. I closed out the window, but it asked if I wanted to save the order for later. I decided to save it, but didn’t know if I could get it. A couple of nights later, I got a phone call from an Apple Rep. asking if I was still interested in the G5. I was in shock. I was, but I explained I didn’t have the money for it just yet. I hoped to get my state refund deposited in a day or two and I would see then. The rep said that was fine and said that if I didn’t want the G5, then in 4 days the order would self-terminate and the shopping cart would be cleared. If I could get it, and still wanted to, I could put through the transaction before the 4 days were up. WOW. That was cool. As it turned out, 2 days later, my state refund came in, and I pulled the ‘trigger’ on the purchase. I’ve been living the last 10 months with the sweetest computer I’ve ever owned.
What exactly is driving all the hits to Apple.com? The forums?
1,000,000 macheads hitting the site 40 times every Tuesday doesn’t hurt.
Just think…this might include everybody running over to the Dell site to spec out the cheapest Dell against the mini !!!
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Dumb question, but since you access the iTunes Store through iTunes itself it still applies to the total Apple Store visits, right? I thought the incredible number of hits was due to selling music via iTunes. Am I wrong in that assumption? I hope so – that means that people are overwhelmingly checking out the hardware!
No, the iTunes server is separate from the Apple website
I was one of those who went to the DULL site to spec out their cheapo PC at $399 to compare with the mini. After I ran a gauntlet of upgrade offers and come ons, I got to the check out window and totaled the transaction. At that time they tagged a $99 shipping and handling fee.
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I am enjoying my mini now -sweet.
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Sorry TexAg, but we’re talking about unique visitors. While someone may count a couple times, it’s due to being on different computers when they access the site. RePlay may have hit on something, hey, there’s enough reporters hitting the site. Oh yeah, we’re talking about December…how ’bout the iPod for Christmas?
MDN magic word: perform, as in Apple’s iPod continues to PERFORM outstandingly well.