Archive for Shopping

Popular Price Comparison Sites

ProBargainHunter.com is one of those gems of the eCommerce blogosphere that becomes “required reading” over time. He does great reviews of products and shares his insights on finding bargains online.

Earlier this month he began a list that tracks the popularity of price comparisons sites. Below are the top 10 from that list, check out his site for the rest.

# Web Site Alexa Rank Page Rank Online Since
1 shopping.yahoo.com 1(*)   9   18-Jan-1995
2 shopping.msn.com 2(*) (n/a) 9 (n/a) 10-Nov-1994
3 froogle.google.com 3(*)   9   11-Sep-2001
4 shopping.aol.com 44(*) (n/a) 0 (n/a) 22-Jun-1995
5 shopper.cnet.com 108(*) (0.92%) 8   05-Jul-1996
6 nextag.com 408 (6.42%) 7   15-Oct-1998
7 shopping.com 422 (2.99%) 8   03-Jul-1997
8 pricegrabber.com 477 (1.65%) 8   10-Mar-1999
9 bizrate.com 493 (5.92%) 8   24-Apr-1996
10 shoplocal.com 702 (n/a) 7 (n/a) 24-Sep-1998

If you like this, you might also want to check out his “Social Bargain Hunting Roundup“.

Comments (1)

On Pricing

Slate has a great article about pricing and marketing.

According to Varian, retailers who vary their prices over time—increasing them one week, then discounting the next—create the kind of price instability that encourages consumers to shop around. The end result is that shoppers visit several sites before making a purchase, which is exactly what retailers want us to do.

The article goes on to discuss why Apple iPods are never discounted, and the reasoning behind it. Overall, a very informative read.

The lessons learned here can be transferred over to an eCommerce store’s strategy at any time. Chief among them being that you should fluctuate your pricing.

Comments off

A Cool Way to Filter Items While Shopping Online

snipshot_l4cw3lv2b.jpgWhile looking for some more RAM for my MacBook, a co-worker of mind stumbled across a great new way for me to search through items for sale on the internet. The website is called TheFind.com and it’s a new service that basically finds what you want on the internet.

“TheFind.com currently searches over 500,000 stores on the Web and finds over 150 million products – that is 5 times larger than most comparison shopping sites. We rank results by the best matches right on the first page, along with the top brands and stores for your search. With one click you can view sale or new items, easily save your favorites in a personalized list called “MyFinds”, or quickly e-mail products to friends.”

Searching for what you want couldn’t be easier. Just type in the item you are looking for, click find, sit back and wait for the searches to populate your screen. If what you start to type is common, a short list of items already used will pop-up allowing you to choose from this list. After you search, you even have the ability to filter your results by price, sale items, and/or new items. The site is still in beta but so far, so good.

Comments off