'Net Features : comparison shopping

Shopzilla CPC Feeds Head to Google

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Comparison shopping engine Shopzilla has announced a partnership with Google that will begin on January 22nd and bring its merchant's listings to Google shopping.

Shopzilla is essentially compiling all of their direct merchant data feeds into one aggregated data feed that they will in turn distribute through Google Shopping.

Merchants might be concerned that the partnership could negatively impact their existing Google Shopping (PLA) campaigns, but Google will first present Google Shopping listings if that listing and the same Shopzilla product listing come into contention. Less-experienced retailers, those just starting on Shopzilla will likely benefit the most from the partnership as their listings will now be available on one of the most high profile comparison shopping engine available.

Shopzilla is not the only comparison shopping engine to partner with Google. Shopping.com also partnered with Google back in mid-November 2012.

More Options, More Money?

Amberly Dressler — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:30:00 GMT

Today’s digital shopper wants and expects options. And, companies that don’t give them options stand to fall behind in the e-commerce race.

Retailers like Fry’s and Dell realize this and use a new feature from Webcollage Inc., a company that manages real-time, automatic content updates across a network of retail websites, to give users the ability to compare similar products. (See example.)

"Our A/B testing with millions of products at the largest retailers in the world tell us the more information they have about the products they consider, the more likely they are to buy," says Webcollage CEO Scott Matthews. "Letting shoppers easily compare products side by side helps them make a quicker purchase decision and be confident they are buying the product right for them."

Although the product comparison tables’ impact on conversion has yet to be measured, Webcollage’s CRM/Marketing Manager, Grace Baek, says in the past they’ve seen an increase of 6 -36 percent due to rich product information in general.

“We expect that product comparison tables, when available and used smartly, will increase this number further by another 3 – 4 percent,” said Baek.

These comparison tables are integrated alongside the rest of Webcollage's rich content on retailer websites, all designed to dynamically show the range of product choices available at that retailer.

“The feature is available to our entire global retailer network that includes a few hundred sites, including sites such as Staples, Walgreens and Sam’s Club,” said Baek. “And similar to the rest of our content syndication features, manufacturers upload content, create the comparison tables then publish them—they do not need to create retailer specific charts, our platform dynamically sorts and filters to make sure the chart is current with only the products sold at each retailer.”

Comparing CSEs - Who's on Top?

Amberly Dressler — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:30:00 GMT

The prom king – and queen – for that matter of Comparison Shopping Engines is Google. With the announcement and impending launch of Google Shopping, search’s royal court is prepping for an all Comparison Shopping Engine (CSE) shakedown and changing the CSE landscape forever. The Web’s most competitive CSEs will need to follow suit with many of Google Shopping’s inherent upgrades – like providing a better shopping experience for users with more merchant updated info, and, in turn, providing merchants with higher conversion rates.

Here are the CSEs we think are doing a pretty good job, for consumers and merchants, already.

Google Product Search

Google’s huge advantage to both retailers and consumers is that it’s the most popular search engine in the world and has a solid reputation to work off of. This CSE is feature rich for both parties. Consumers have the ability to see seller ratings, product condition, tax and shipping, total price and base price. This info obviously influences buyer’s decisions, as, according to CPC Strategy’s 13th edition of their CSR ranking report, Google has the highest conversion rate of any other CSR. Using Google Maps, shopping results also include nearby stores where the product is available. In the future, Google merchants can be more competitive by placing high bids for top position, add rich product info like images, merchant’s name, and more.

Amazon

Amazon has one foot in retail, and the rest of its virtual body in CSE. Its comparison features are what savvy buyers expect, which is conveyed in Amazon’s astronomical sales and traffic. Amazon focuses on selection, price and convenience, and buyers are, well, buying it. One-click checkout gives consumers one of the most convenient checkouts available. For merchants, their cost-per-click rate is pretty average for the industry, but it’s the traffic that really gives Amazon its power.

Nextag

Nextag offers a straightforward approach to comparison shopping. A shopper can see the basic, compare prices list with seller’s name, seller’s ratings, product availability and price. Thirty-plus million people use the service each month and according to a report by CPC Strategy, they come only second to Google in revenue. Features like the ability to track price alerts, save shopping lets, etc., improve the user experience and convert prospects into buyers.

Shopping.com

Shopping.com, an eBay company, is a site to bookmark for consumers. It not only returns results for countless of retailers, but also includes eBay listings, which gives shoppers a large variety of options. For merchants, their cost-per-click rate is 10 cents lower, on average, than Nextag’s (according to CPC Strategy Report), but its traffic and revenue is higher than all the other guys, besides the three listed above.

PriceGrabber

Merchants looking for a low cost per click should check out PriceGrabber. At 26 cents on average (according to CPC Strategy Report), it’s the lowest on the market. Consumers also receive highly competitive prices within their search results. Reviews are very easy to leave, which may not always be a good thing for merchants. The purchasing power of PriceGrabber’s consumers is extremely impressive, though. According to the company, the average sale order of PriceGrabber shoppers is $450-plus, with 67% of the 26 million unique shoppers, being college educated with an average yearly income of $71,000-plus, according to the company’s website.

Shopzilla

The ability to sort search results by a number of different options (e.g. prices ascending/descending, store ratings, etc.) and obtain comprehensive product details is convenient, but the number of results don’t rival some of the bigger guys listed above, at least for this gal’s searches. However, Shopzilla reaches more than 40 million shoppers each month and connects them with more than 100 million products, according to the company’s website.

Pronto

For merchants, Pronto’s cost per click is nearly as high as Nextag’s (at 41 cents on average, according to CPC strategy), but it boasts 70-plus million products for shoppers and the ability to shop by category and filter search results. There’s a few discerning aspects like the lack of updates on its Company Information page (In the News and Press Releases, specifically) and a broken List Your Products link, but the shopping verticals like ProntoStyle.com, ProntomHome.com, etc., provide great tools for consumers and a more targeted buyer for merchants.

Merchants See Performance Gains at Channel Intelligence

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:43:00 GMT

With consumer confidence still at record low levels, and in an increasingly complicated technical environment, Internet retailers that are actively marketing products on comparison shopping may be the only ones that will be left standing as consumers continue to look for the lowest price – and not just their favorite merchants. Those merchants with an eye on performance optimization will be thriving and not just surviving.

Retail clients of Channel Intelligence (CI), a provider of performance-based e-commerce services (product search, paid search, display ads), saw a thirty percent year-over-year sales increase (on a same-seller basis). Retailers using CI Product Search saw a 28 percent year-over-year sales increase, and clients using CI’s Shopping Engines service experienced a 32 percent increase compared to the same period in 2010.

“Although there is a significant increase in year-over-year sales, our analysis reveals that consumer confidence may still be weak because we see the majority of online shoppers currently making selections based on price.” said Rob Wight, CEO of CI. “The good news is that consumers are spending. They are just being very deliberate and price-conscious in how they spend.”

Channel Intelligence has a long roster of leading companies as clients including Best Buy, Target, HP and others and drives upwards of $2 billion annually in online sales.

Getting the Most Out of Mobile

Linc Wonham — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:30:00 GMT

Many retailers consider it their next big opportunity, while for others there remains a mysterious quality – perhaps, even for some, inconvenient. But make no mistake; the evolution of mobile shopping platforms is reshaping the e-commerce landscape forever.

So, like it or not, merchants have to adjust. Whether that means developing a mobile website or an application for the multitude of today’s devices – or all of the above – the most successful e-retailers will always be the ones who willingly accept, even embrace, change.

To help foster that glass-half-full outlook, and provide some helpful tips along the way, below are some of the best opportunities awaiting your online retail business in the mobile space:

Customer Service
Speed is of the essence when it comes to customer relationship management, and the mobile platform provides opportunities that simply were not available before now. Whether it involves an SMS messaging protocol to thank customers on their way out of a store’s physical location; real-time product descriptions, inventory and pricing information, or the distribution of daily, weekly or monthly online coupon notifications – the mobile channel can significantly enhance a retailer’s dialogue with customers.

Location Technologies
They are not going away, and for good reason. Perhaps the leading catalyst behind mobile commerce, location-based services and platforms can – and will, for many – be a retailer’s best friend. Merchants should begin by ensuring that they are easily searchable by their mobile customers, and then add to their presence with features such as alerts, coupons, ratings and reviews, inventory, etc.

CSEs
Recent studies have shown that mobile shoppers use their devices most frequently to compare the prices of in-store products with other products online. Retailers that have taken the time to establish a mobile presence but neglect to take advantage of comparison shopping engines are losing customers to this process. And it’s not just enough to participate today; in the mobile age it is imperative that every bit of data remains accurate in real time.

Payments and Barcodes
Much more than a simpler way for consumers to complete transactions, the mobile payments movement and mobile barcodes provide retailers with increased opportunities to offer promotions, cross-sell and upsell. Each barcode and/or mobile payment system adopted by a merchant gives that merchant the ability to use a landing page for a specific product or category purchased through that channel, allowing for customized messaging to an entirely new group of customers.

While it may seem new and even somewhat intimidating to many of us, mobile commerce has arrived – and it is here to stay. In this ever-flexible world of e-commerce, the most content merchants a year or two from now will be the ones that accepted this latest change rather than running from it.

Comparison Shopping & Brand Awareness

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:30:00 GMT

For building brand awareness, shopping search engines are a retailer’s best bet.

As the online shopping experience becomes more social every day, it is important for retailers and their products to be seen in all the right places. High on the list of those destinations are comparison shopping search engines, on which consumers are increasingly relying to drive their purchasing decisions.

Read "Comparison Shopping Engines: A Retailers' Best Friend" by Website Magazine's associate editor Linc Wonham now.

This article appears in the November 2010 edition of Website Magazine.

eBay's RedLaser Brings Barcodes and Comparison Shopping Center Stage

Administrator — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:41:00 GMT

E-commerce powerhouse eBay has acquired a popular barcode-scanning application for the iPhone in RedLaser.

RedLaser is used primarily for comparison shopping, enabling consumers to find product information (and pricing) using their mobile device. According to the announcement, eBay will begin integratating RedLaser’s technology into its iPhone applications, including its eBay Marketplace, eBay Selling, StubHub and Shopping.com applications.

“Mobile enables consumers to make impulse buys and convenient purchases wherever they are, and eBay is constantly innovating to make mobile shopping easy and reduce the friction in commerce,” said Mark Carges, chief technology officer and senior vice president, global products, eBay Marketplaces. “With RedLaser’s innovative technology, eBay is continuing to help shoppers quickly find the best deals online, and eBay sellers will be able to list their items faster.”

SortPrice Adds Shop by Color Feature

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:57:00 GMT

Shopping search engine SortPrice added a new "Shop By Color" feature. That might not be big news to those that use other shopping comparison engines, but if you're taking the time to customize a XML shopping feed with attributes such as color it's certainly worthy of note. Bidding on a keyword containing a refining descriptor such as the color could ultimately lead to a lower bid price and a lower cost per conversion.

The "Shop by Color" feature at SortPrice allows users to narrow a detailed product search by color, or shop for a product by color alone, such as green MP3 players, white women's sandals, or even red blenders. Product thumbnail images across the site can now be enlarged, along with the text of product descriptions, for easier reading and research. When consumers are cutting spending, you need every feature you can to get users comfortable and this is certainly a way to do that.

"In the five short years since we started this company, Sortprice has become a reliable online shopping partner for millions of people and a trusted ally among merchants," said Doron Simovitch, Sortprice co-founder and CEO. "These new tools, designed with the shopper in mind, represent our commitment to using cutting edge technology to give consumers the best online shopping experience available."

Where Consumers Comparison Shop

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:01:00 GMT

With the economy sagging, consumers will likely slow down their spending. While it doesn't mean people will stop shopping altogether, it's a good bet that consumers will start looking for better deals on the products they want and need. Couple our current economic crisis with rising gas prices and brick-and-mortar stores might take a hit this holiday shopping season. That also means that online retailers could see an uptick in usage. If that's the case, you need to know where consumers will shop and look for deals online.

Read "Where Are Consumers Comparison Shopping"

PriceSpider Social Comparison Shopping

Administrator — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:46:00 GMT

Another day, another social shopping offering (this time a comparison engine). PriceSpider.com, backed by leading Microsoft National Systems Integrator Neudesic, announced the launch of its price comparison web site to help consumers (what else) save time and money. PriceSpider.com is billing itself as the latest in social networking and ground-breaking web-crawling technology. Let's look at how it works.

Traditional comparison web sites only post pricing and availability periodically for a limited group of retailers. The advantage of PriceSpider.com is that it is an active search engine using technology that continuously scans for pricing and product information. The search spans hundreds of online retailers in real-time to provide consumers with the true lowest price available on the web. PriceSpider also enables users to create a personal network to share their product lists with others and features the ability to communicate with their personal network to track and share product and pricing information.

Comparison Shopping Survey: Your Opinion Counts

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:33:00 GMT

Comparison shopping online already transformed retailing, but how has it affected you? Whether you’re leading the charge as an active merchant, or you find it’s a big bore, your opinion counts. As a valued subscriber of Website Magazine, you are invited to answer a survey that should take no more than 5 minutes to complete. Your responses will help us gauge the impact of comparison shopping online on web professionals like you. The data collected will be available in the August edition of Website Magazine.

Take the survey on comparison shopping and comparison shopping engines now.