June 8, 2005

Farhad Mohit on Shopzilla vs. Shopping.com

A follow-up to David Jackson's post at the Interent Stock Blog:

Chairman and Chief Product Officer of Shopzilla on Shopzilla vs Shopping.com (SHOP)

He makes five main points on Shopzilla vs. Shopping.com, starting with 1) Shopzilla has far superior technology. The rest of his response elaborates on this theme. A barn-burner of a good read, but it could use some balance.

for example,

"How else can you explain that with 22MM UVs they're planning on generating significantly less revenues than we will be with 14MM UVs?"

It could be superior technology, but that is not the only possible answer.

1) What vs. Where. In other words, when I am early in the buying process (What), I almost always use a Shopping.com site (Epinions) over Shopzilla, for a near-seamless transition of buying guides, attribute search and user reviews. When I am getting closer to making the purchase (Where), I might be more apt to check in on Shopzilla. Of course, clicks later in the buying process are far more valuable.

2) International Expansion.
How much are clicks on the European sites worth compared to their U.S. counterparts? Shopzilla.co.uk looks like the only Bizrate/Shopzilla site that has gained any kind of traction outside the states. Compare that to DealTime.co.uk and the Shopping.com sub-domains.

3) Distribution Partners. How do we ever know we are comparing apples vs. apples? For example, visitors from AOL InStore, surely they show up on the revenue side, but are they also included in the unique visitor count?

None of this is to take away from the strong results by Shopzilla, but comparing financial results is not always as straightforward as comparing product prices.

Farhad Mohit on Shopzilla vs. Shopping.com
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on June 8, 2005 at 10:16 AM
Archived at Shopping.com | Shopzilla