Comparison shopping
engines (CSE's) give ecommerce merchants the opportunity to attract new
customers, increase sales, and go head-to-head against the competition.
In this brief guide,
we’ll explain what comparison shopping engines are, tell you about some of the
best platforms available, and show you how to get your products listed.
What are Comparison Shopping Engines?
Comparison shopping
engines are channels for collecting product
information, including pricing,
from participating retailers and then display that collective information on a
single results page in response to a shopper's search query. In this way,
shoppers can compare prices, shipping
options, and service from multiple retailers on a single page
and choose the merchant that offers the best overall value.
For example, let's say
I want to buy a Rubik's Cube and want to see what my options are, or maybe find
the best price. I can go to Google Shopping (one of the most popular CSE's
around) and initiate a search. Here's what comes up:
For ecommerce
merchants, comparison shopping engines are an opportunity to put your products
in front of very
interested buyers. These are not people
glancing at a virtual storefront like a window shopper at the mall. Rather, CSE
users typically have already made the decision to buy and are simply looking
for the best deal. With their high-intent to purchase, comparison shoppers are
often an ideal audience for promoting
your products.
10 Top Price Comparison Websites
Google Shopping is probably the largest and best known
comparison shopping engine. Products submitted to Google Shopping will also be
displayed on standard Google search results and are integrated with Google's
pay-per-click platform, Adwords.
Nextag has been in operation since 1999 and has
millions of visitors each month. Nextag was consistently a top performer for
traffic and conversions in CPC Strategy's formerly published
reviews of leading CSE's. You can list products, event tickets, real estate,
and even travel bookings.
In addition to
presenting products on its site, PriceGrabber has
a market research tool, Market Report, that allows retailers to track consumer
purchase and product
pricing trends. When you list your
products on PriceGrabber, you'll also be listed on Yahoo Shopping which is a
nice added bonus.
Shopping.com is part of eBay's family of companies
and is another great channel for merchants to put their products in front of
prospective buyers. Shopping.com also partners with The Find, another CSE on
this list.
With millions of
monthly visitors and a pedigree dating back to 1996, Shopzillais one of the best choices for ecommerce merchants
looking for some extra
sales. This comparison
shopping engine also has tens of millions of products listed, so the selection
is wide but competition might be tough.
Become is another leader in the CSE space,
allowing thrifty shoppers to compare prices, read or write product
reviews, and simply search
for the best possible online shopping deals.
Bing Shopping was
eventually sunsetted in 2013 to be replaced by Bing Product Search, which
happens right in the Bing search engine. Microsoft does offer the Shopping
Campaigns feature within its advertising suite, which may be the closest
alternative for now. Purna Virji, who works at Microsoft, has a helpful
webinar on how to make
the most of your Bing Shopping Campaigns.
8. Pronto
With tens of millions
of product listings sorted into various retail verticals and millions of
visitors monthly, Pronto certainly merits consideration for any
retailer's CSE campaigns.
In addition to showing
product and price comparisons, BizRate allows
customers to set price alerts for products they’re interested in.
Amazon isn't
technically a comparison shopping engine, but they work in a similar fashion.
When you register for Product Ads you can upload your products manually or via
FTP. Amazon will then create ads for your products
using the information provided in your product file. When you set your budget,
your ads will go live and you'll pay-per-click.
The Cost of Comparison Shopping Engines
Most CSE’s are going
to charge you per click-through or per action. With pay-per-click, sellers pay
a set fee or bid each time that a potential customer clicks on that merchant's
link.
In a pay-per-action
model, retailers will pay a percentage of the value of a sale made as a result
of being listed on the CSE. No one pricing model is a fit for all businesses,
so choose which works best for you.
Getting Products Listed On Price
Comparison Websites
Most CSE's require
retailers to submit a formatted product feed. This feed must meet a CSE-defined
specification and should be updated frequently. The CSE uses scripts to parse
and ingest the data from the feed, displaying the included information on
results pages as appropriate.
Shopify merchants have
several apps available that make submitting product feeds to CSE's easier and
in some cases, automatic. Regardless of how a feed is created, smart merchants
will work to optimize descriptions and prices to get the most sales possible.
Tudou.co.uk is
a comparison shopping engine. However, it warrants a place on this list as a
large source of ecommerce traffic for online consumers can sort products for
purchases. This shopping site has features deals, coupons, and weekly
specials.
For my television, I needed extra wireless speakers for watching our favourite movies. But we never bought them as they were not within our budget. BurnPedia.com helped us compare the features and prices of wireless TV speakers. After visiting the website and comparing features and prices, we bought one at a reasonable price. This is a very nice website; I liked it.
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