Economic downturn == Manyfold traffic increase

It has been interesting to see www.vakuutuskone.com a site/company I Co-Founded to increase its traffic manyfold now that the economy is in the gutter.

The site does comparisons between insurance and finance product options. Much like www.moneysupermarket.com in the UK and similar sites in other markets.

Sounds pretty logical; people feel the financial squeeze -> there's a burning need to switch to lower cost (essentially better) insurance options -> traffic on sites like Vakuutuskone (loose translation: the insurance machine) goes up manyfold.

Vakuutuskone.com is still the only site in the finnish local market that does customized comparisons between companies and their product options, all the other players in the same space rely on non-customized bulkish comparisons, often limited to price only.

It will be interesting to see how much opportunity, and what kind of opportunity, rises from the economic downwards spiral. So far the outlook on many sites is not bad.

One of the largest webstore platform providers in Finland just today reported that their customers' Xmas sales went up despite the current situation. Seems like websales is still very much alive and kicking, even if retail is slumping.

Have you heard any recessions-defying success stories lately?