October 18, 2005

Comparison Shopping Optimization

I just ran across a sponsored case study on InternetRetailer.com from July 2005: Comparison Shopping Optimization: What Every Online Retailer Needs to Know (for a .PDF, see the source)

It is a nice outline of how retailers can improve their advertising perfomance with comparison shopping engines, but perhaps even more significant is that is uses the term comparison shopping optimization.

By now, many (most?) online retailers have heard of search engine optimization, or its abbreviation, SEO. There are still variations of this term, and search engine marketing (SEM) is the more accurate description for integrated SEO and PPC, but there is no denying the mojo of SEO.

Comparison shopping vendors have no equivalent to SEO or SEM. The lack mojo.

I've seen "shopping feed management" (SFM?), but it sound so unsexy, so bureaucratic, like anyone could do it and get roughly the same results. It sounds like the kind of job that would be handed down to Milton from Office Space, if only he could find his stapler.

Then there are the companies who come up with terms so obtuse, I have a hard time figuring out what the heck they are selling. Maybe that is their point, but I think in the long run, everyone benefits from using terminology that is at least in the same ballpark.

Is there a term a potential customer can type into Google to find the majority of comparison shopping service vendors?

"shopping feeds" might be the most used, and the least glamorous.

Anyway, I'm surprised a natural-sounding phrase like comparison shopping optimization ("CSO") was not used before the white paper (Google: comparison shopping optimization), and has not been used since, except for copies and references of the source.

Comparison Shopping Optimization (1)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on October 18, 2005 at 8:01 AM
Archived at Shopping Search Industry

Comments

Posted by Christian at October 18, 2005 9:27 PM