Retail words of the week: Victoria's Secret, iPhone gloves, Good Guys

(AFP PHOTO / TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

Retail search terms around the world with the largest increase in hits for the week ending November 27 according to Experian Hitwise.*

Perhaps unsurprisingly last week's most Americans were searching for terms related to Black Friday; perhaps surprisingly many of them were searching lingerie company Victoria's Secret and department store Wal-Mart.

For those who don't know, Black Friday occurs the day after Thanksgiving and marks the unofficial start of the shopping season, with many retailers offering huge discounts. Some of the most popular search terms in America were " Walmart thanksgiving day sale," " Walmart black Friday 2010 flyer," " Victoria's secret black Friday," and " Victoria's secret miraculous push up-bra."

Internet users in the UK were not quite as cheery; the book Depressive Illness: The Curse of the Strong appears three times in last week's top searches with the variants "curse of the strong," " depressive illness curse of the strong," and " the curse of the strong." The recently popular book is normally available on amazon.co.uk for £4.50; however, due to overwhelming demand the website has sold out, and used versions are currently retailing for over £300. Overall the top UK search term was " Apple iPhone gloves"; these winter essentials are made with a conductive inner layer allowing touch screen phone users to operate their device without removing their gloves and risking frostbite.

The popularity of Black Friday stretched as far as Singapore, where internet users were searching for " Black Friday deals"; other popular searches included " inflatable bath pillows," " golf sale online" and " jailbreak 4.2." The last term refers to Apple's new IOS 4.2 operating system and "jailbreak" is a term used by iPhone owners meaning to remove the constraints imposed upon the device by Apple and by non-Apple authorized apps.

Home accessories stores Kmart and Good Guys were  popular search terms in Australia, as was ticket company " ticketek," which sells tickets to a variety of sporting and music events. Tickets for pop star Katy Perry's 2011 Australian concerts went on sale on the site on November 25.

Experian Hitwise* - Fast-moving search terms under the industry category Shopping and Classifieds, ranked by the largest percentage increase for the week ending November 27 compared with the week ending November 20.