It could be the last noel for some pure-play e-tailers, but it’s the season to be jolly for BizRate.com, a comparison shopping site and online research company based in Marina del Rey.

Shoppers have been flocking to the BizRate site to find deals using the site’s popular comparison shopping tools. Shoppers made BizRate the fourth most popular retail site in the country, with unique visitors numbering over 500,000 per day in December, according to Jupiter Media Metrix.

Meanwhile, the company’s CEO, Chuck Davis, has emerged recently on the business pages of major newspapers, magazines and on television news programs as the trusted bearer of online retail news. It was Davis who the press looked to for the scoop on online retail sales during the holiday shopping season way below expectations, in case you tuned out.

BizRate’s e-tail tidings were cited in an array of holiday round-up stories in The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal and on CNN, to name just a few.

“We’ve made a major transformation from being a research e-commerce company to one that is a leading comparison shopping site,” Davis said.

Indeed, the company has morphed from an e-commerce research firm at its 1996 formation into an e-marketplace with a research arm.

The company was founded by two graduates of the Wharton School of Management, Farhad Mohit and Henri Asseily, and a former vice dean of the school, David Reibstein. The idea for the company was based on Mohit’s thesis, which envisioned a business model that would facilitate e-commerce by freeing the flow of information between buyers and sellers and organizing the data into a retail hub.

Last year the trio tapped Davis, a former Walt Disney Co. executive who headed up e-commerce for Disney’s Go.com unit, to help the company transition to its e-marketplace model.

The site is popular with consumers because it’s trustworthy. BizRate doesn’t exclude any store or manufacturer based on exclusivity deals, which means the company only sends shoppers to the store that fits the shoppers’ needs.

The site is attractive to sellers because BizRate doesn’t charge up-front slotting or advertising fees to be featured. Sellers are charged only on a pay-for-performance basis.

In order to conduct its research, BizRate has deals with more than 2,000 online retailers. BizRate places a link to the firms’ checkout pages, which allows it to track the number of sales at these merchants in real time (and later, once customers have filled out a survey, the dollar amount).

BizRate makes money by selling aggregated marketing research based on the survey feedback the company receives from customers at the point-of-sale. Also, some stores pay for premium placement in sections of the site.

However, consumers have the option of re-sorting those lists based on individual preferences. Store ratings are based only on customer feedback, so buying research or participating in promotional activities has no influence on how a store is rated.

BizRate’s model won a vote of confidence from the venture capital community. The company completed three rounds of financing, raking in $77 million from investors such as Access Technology Partners, Allegis Capital and Westway Capital.

So what is Davis’ take on the holiday season?

“This was the first holiday for many bricks-and-clicks, but for some pure play e-tailers it was their last,” said Davis. “There was good growth but not what everyone expected. Year-over-year holiday growth was at 58 percent, but we thought it was going to be at 81 percent.”

Between Nov. 20 and Dec. 17, shoppers spent $4.74 billion at online stores, according to BizRate stats.

“Computers did not do as well as we thought, and computers are by far the biggest category on the Web,” Davis said.

In 2000, computer sales have wilted, disproportionately depressing e-tail figures. Take computers out of the mix and the 58 percent year-over-year sales growth that BizRate measured becomes a cheerier 65 percent.

“Overall, customers reported better fulfillment of their orders and better customer service, with 87 percent of orders arriving on time,” Davis said. “We saw a migration into higher-quality brands and brands that resonate with consumers, and that usually meant they turned to a bricks-and-clicks.”

So there’s reason for e-tail optimism?

“Consumers are more confident in buying online,” Davis said. “They’re spending more and they’re buying more frequently, but just not as much as we thought.”

Another Marina del Rey-based dot-com is winning big this season because its visitors are sticking around. Bingo.com Inc., which operates a games-for-prizes portal, has the nation’s stickiest site, according to Nielsen/NetRatings Inc.

The sticky measurement identifies sites where Web surfers spend the most time and shows exactly how long each visitor lingers on average each month.

In November, the average Web surfer spent five hours and 20 minutes during the month at Bingo.com.

All that stickiness seems to be paying off for the publicly traded company.

Bingo.com merged with privately held Lottery Channel Inc., a Cincinnati-based company that operates online lottery and gaming sites.

Under the deal announced Dec. 18, Lottery Channel will receive 14.5 million shares of Bingo.com stock and gain a 58 percent stake in Bingo.com. Lottery Channel shareholders will also receive warrants that entitle them to purchase an additional 14.5 million shares at $2 a share.

Staff reporter Hans Ibold can be reached at [email protected]