Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Imran Khan – JP Morgan.
Imran Khan – JP Morgan
Two questions, first I’m trying to understand the trend inter quarter and what you are seeing in the fourth quarter. You talked about softer towards the end of September and the beginning of October. Could you please quantify that, give us some more color? Is it down on a year-over-year basis, the average daily volume? That would be very helpful.
The second question is with regards to sales and marketing cost up 43%, customer acquisition costs up 32% but I believe the customer growth rate was 9%. Do you think it makes sense to continue to invest in sales and marketing considering consumer sentiment is so low?
Mark J. Rubash
With respect to what we’ve seen since September I won’t quantify any specific numbers but I would say that in terms of traffic to our site we’re seeing very similar types of patterns. Some of you looked at the recent Hitwise report that was published on consumer and retail ecommerce. We’re definitely saw some consistency with that information and it’s not surprising given the amount of interest and concern about the financial crisis that stated in late September and through October.
I would say that it is concerning for sure but it’s not alarming at this stage. I think also keep in mind that October represents a relatively low percentage of our total Q4 revenue. It’s enough to be concerned about and I think anything that takes the consumer’s mind of their spending habits is going to impact everybody.
Jeffrey T. Housenbold
I’ll take the second question and just quickly add a little bit to what Mark was saying. I think what we’re saying is that consistent with overall ecommerce and the dampening in the visitation and the purchasing given the historic down draft in the financial markets over the last three weeks but we’re seeing continued visitation and market share that is consistent with our leading position.
I think in a couple of weeks in Info Trends will launch their market share numbers and confirm that we haven’t been losing share, in fact we’ve maintained our top position and gained on Snapfish. It’s really a macroeconomic trend not a competitive one. In terms of sales and marketing, Imran I think there’s a couple of things interplay here. I think one is our headcount, we grew the headcount in the marketing team and some of that our product marketing people who are building future feature functionality like our new share site, the enhancements to photo books.
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