January 2005

Is Become.com starting to sound like...

...the dynamic realization of Organized Shopping?

I have added "or Become.com" to my mini-manifesto on the home page, just in case. ;-)

Is Become.com starting to sound like...
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 31, 2005 at 5:19 PM
Archived at Become.com | OrganizedShopping.com

A9 Introduces the Visual Yellow Pages

Wow!

A9's "block view" is trying to change the way we interact with the Yellow Pages.

Try it: "starbucks seattle" brings up listings like this one for Starbucks.

A decade ago, who would have thought we would be able to have so much interaction with the yellow pages? Will usage of the paper yellow pages become one of the markers of old age, like ten-cent movies and walking uphill in the snow -- both ways -- were for our grandparents?

I'm already liking several of the features. Each listing comes with a large default photo, and several smaller photos taken at different angles. You do not even need to click the thumbnails to enlarge them, the change is made in real-time simply by hovering your mouse over them. Also, there is a check box under each thumbnail that allows visitors to vote on the best image of the business.


Also, if you know me, you know I kinda have a thing for structured information. So does Amazon.com, as we can see by clicking on a "Update Business Info" link, which leads to a form that includes the following structured fields:

Products and Services

Services: [ ] Delivery [ ] After Hours [ ] Pick Up [ ] Repair

Hours of Operations: (drop-down boxes for all types of hours)

Languages Spoken: English Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Mandarin), Esperanto, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, Other _____

Payment and Offers

Terms of Payment: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover Diners Club, JCB, Personal Checks, Travelers Checks, Cash, Insurance, Purchase Orders, Government Contracts, Cash On Deliver, Foreign Currency, Money Orders, Financing Available

Free Estimate/Assement: Yes, No, N/A

Senior Discount: Yes, No, N/A

Wholesale, Business-to-Business: Yes, No

Retail, Business-to-Consumer: Yes, No

The form also includes numerous unstructured fields, such as Slogan or Tagline, Key Services and Product Offering, Brands Sold or Represented, Associations & Affiliations, Licenses & Certifications, Special Offers, Guarantees, yada yada yada.

How does this compare to the other Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs)? This could be cause for an Internet Yellow Pages Shootout.


Amazon.com has a cute yellow tab for the Yellow Pages with the little "walking fingers" image.

How prominant will this tab be when the service comes out of beta?

Further reading & discussion at Threadwatch.

via Search Engine Watch

A9 Introduces the Visual Yellow Pages
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 27, 2005 at 9:17 AM
Archived at Amazon.com | Local Shopping Engines

Comparison Shopping On The Cover Of Catalog Age

...and the article includes a summary grid of facts & figures of interest to merchant advertisers.

And so it continues, as individual catalogs find their way into the big virtual catalog(s).

via Search Engine Lowdown

Comparison Shopping On The Cover Of Catalog Age
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 26, 2005 at 1:16 PM
Archived at Shopping Engines

Is comparison shopping bad for Amazon.com?

That is the question being asked by the Internet Stock Blog.

Answer: yes, but not necessarily for the reason mentioned in this post.

I could be wrong, but my feeling is that many (most?) of the people who are super-concerned with price differences have already found a favorite price comparison engine or two.

Similar to the fear among advertisers that sooner or later everyone would get ad-blocking software. It could happen, but only if it came enabled by default on new computers (i.e. Norton). Growth rates cannot be extrapolated from the early adopters, if the rest of the market might not know enough or care enough to go down the same path. The mass market will need more hand-holding. For price comparison, this could happen if Froogle and Yahoo! Shopping get increased exposure on their parent search engines.

Okay, now let's talk about the real threat.

Background: I talk to a lot of people about their online shopping experiences. From the tech elite at industry conferences to Joe and Jane Surfer in middle America, I'm always asking some variation of the same question, "what is your process to search online for fuzzy blue widgets?"

Not surprisingly, a decent percent of people start their search for books, music, videos, electronics, and other common consumer goods at Amazon.com. But not once has anyone cited lowest-price as their primary motivation. What keeps them coming back to Amazon?

Reviews.

Amazon.com is an irresistible "honeypot" to online shoppers because they have a critical mass of trusted reviews. In the words of Joe Shopper, "Where am I most likely to find enough good reviews on my product (any product) to get comfortable with my decision?"

In the past, Amazon.com’s main competitor in this area was Epinions, now Shopping.com.

These days, there is a new threat that casts a long shadow: Froogle. Last year, Google put the web on notice of a new philosophical direction when it unveiled aggregated product reviews. I was more than a little surprised at the ho-hum response to this development, when everyone is so gaga over Google. Maybe it is because Froogle still needs an extreme usability makeover. Nevertheless, this is a few tweaks away from being ground-breaking stuff. If Froogle goes on to become a shopping comparison powerhouse, we'll be able to look back and identify merchant reviews & product reviews as the turning point.

Will this be the year that Google finally throws some resources at Froogle?


p.s. - Internet Stock Blog - Ticker: SHOP is one for the bookmarks.

Is comparison shopping bad for Amazon.com?
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 25, 2005 at 8:26 AM
Archived at Amazon.com | Price Comparison | Product Reviews

First, Shopping IPO. Next, Vendor VC.

BusinessWeek has a write-up on VC-backed shopping solutions provider Mercent. It sounds like they work with a range of shopping comparison sites, but their bread 'n' butter is Amazon.com.

"When retailers set up Amazon storefronts, transactions are processed on Amazon.com, which then need to be reconciled with the retailer's inventory and shipping. Mercent is one of five Amazon-sanctioned vendors to do that basic work, along with consulting projects on how to increase Amazon store sales."

...and the only one to bid on "Amazon.com integration" at Google, FWIW.

First, Shopping IPO. Next, Vendor VC.
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 25, 2005 at 7:51 AM
Archived at Shopping Search Vendors

Update to the Hotel Comparison: NexTag

Several fine folks at NexTag informed me that they are not exactly chopped liver when it comes to travel search. Indeed, although it is probably too late for an "apples vs. apples" pricing comparison, an initial search of hotels at NexTag returned 22 of the 30 targetted Las Vegas hotels, and I did even better -- 28 hotels -- in a subsequent search. (Apparently, Vegas.com was not included as a source in the initial search). Score one for the all-around shopping engines. I'll be sure to include NexTag in the upcoming airfare shootout.

One neat thing about NexTag is how they cluster results while maintaining transparency. In other words, they only show one listing per hotel on the main search results page, which keeps things uncluttered. Yet, they display prices from several providers at the bottom of each listing, if applicable, and a one-off page displays details from all providers. Compare that to other travel search engines such as Mobissimo, which does not cluster, and SideStep, which uses "blind" re-directs, and NexTag might be on to something here, at least in terms of price comparison.

Update to the Hotel Comparison: NexTag
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 24, 2005 at 8:00 PM
Archived at NexTag | Travel

Pre-Launch Q&A with Michael Yang of Become.com

Jason Dowdell has the scoop on Become.com in the form of a Q&A session with CEO Michael Yang.

Become.com will be interesting because it promises to be more like a "classic" search engine than a shopping comparison site. I'll be doing an in-depth comparison of Become.com and its most-related competitors (to be determined) after next month's launch.

added: a clarification of Become Crawler Info For Webmasters

Pre-Launch Q&A with Michael Yang of Become.com
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 24, 2005 at 10:26 AM
Archived at Become.com

Travel Search Engine Shootout - Las Vegas Hotels

Travel search engines sure have been noisy lately. Kayak.com assembled a "Dream Team" of Internet travel. Mobissimo launched the "Ultimate" online travel resource. SideStep claimed over seven million downloads.

Recent Travel Search News

Sept 21 - SideStep Reaches 7 Million Downloads
Oct. 7 - Travel "Dream Team"Releases Kayak.com
Nov. 12, - AOL and Kayak.com multiyear agreement
Nov. 16. - Mobissimo marked its official launch
Dec. 21, - Kayak.com secures $7 million financing
Jan. 5, 05 - SideStep Launches Web Version

Seven million downloads? Where was I? Admittedly, I had spent more time on the general shopping engines than the travel search engines in 2004, and I did not want to start researching travel until I had the time to do it right. But the growing list of recent news (right) tells me the time for excuses is over, and the time for nitty-gritty analysis is upon us.

Sounds like a great opportunity to research a trip to Las Vegas...

Travel Search Engine Shootout - Las Vegas Strip Hotels

I started with this map of the Las Vegas strip at Vegas.com, subtracted a few clunky sites, and ended up with a list of thirty hotels. Next, I searched for these hotels on eight travel aggregators, plus each of the official hotel sites. Finally, I took all of the rates (before additional tax & fee line-items) and summarized them in the table below, using all sorts of icons, explained in the legend below.

The purpose is not to say that one travel search engine is better than the rest, merely to get an overview of the travel search landscape. Are the new travel search engines more comprehensive than the existing travel aggregator sites? Do the official sites always offer the best rates? And what does this all mean in terms of the actual process used to book a hotel? The results:

Las Vegas Hotels: 4/21/2005 to 4/24/2005 (Searched: 1/18/2005)





before
supplemental listings
26 25 25 24 21 20 16 8 30
after
supplemental listings
29 29 25 28 21 23 16 8 30
Aladdin $467, from Hotels.com $467 $467 $467 $467 $468 $468, by Orbitz by cnghotels.com $467
Bally's $527, by Hotels.com $527 $530 $527   $530 $531, by Orbitz   $527
Bellagio $860, by TravelDealsHere.com $860 $857 $857 $857 $855 $855, by Orbitz   $857
Caesar's Palace $723, by Hotels.com $725 $717 $723 $720 $726 $726, by Orbitz   $720
Circus Circus by Lodging.com $317 $332 $327 $315 by Orbitz by Lodging.com $302
Excalibur $471, by TravelDealsHere.com $471 $497 (3)   $468 $468, by Orbitz   $440
Flamingo Hilton $490, by Hotels.com $490 $490 $490   $490 $489, by Orbitz   $470
Four Seasons (1) (2)   (3)         $1175
Hard Rock $550, by Hotels.com $897 $679 $550 $827       $857
Harrah's $575, by Lodging.com (2) $555 $550 $575     by cnghotels.com and Lodging.com $575
Imperial Palace $426, by Hotels.com $431 $423 $471   (4)     $388
Las Vegas Hilton $460, by TravelDealsHere.com $460 $507 $530   $479 $480, by Orbitz   $457
Luxor $527, by TravelDealsHere.com $527   (3) $527 $535 $534, by Orbitz   $497
Mandalay Bay   $746     $927       $727
MGM Grand $581, by TravelDealsHere.com $581 $575 $589   $569     $599
Mirage, The (1) $7811 $717 $717 $717 $715     $717
Monte Carlo $638, TravelDealsHere.com $638   (3) $623 $639 $639, by Orbitz by Lodging.com $607
New York, NY $546, by TravelDealsHere.com $546 $508 $510 $510 $500 $510, by Orbitz   $510
Palace Station $240, by Hotels.com $263 $253 $240 $240       $290
Palms, The $759, by Lodging.com $759 $787 $880 $759 $947   by Lodging.com $947
Paris $637, by Lodging.com $637 $637 $637   $640 $639, by Orbitz   $637
Rio $813, by TravelDealsHere.com $813 $857 $836 $813 $812 $813, by Orbitz by cnghotels.com and Lodging.com $770
Riviera $270, by PlacesToStay.com (2) $285 $282 $269 $285 $285, by Orbitz by Lodging.com $312
Sahara $234, by Hotels.com $247 $253 $234 $247 (4)     $340
San Remo $341, by Hotels.com $359 $354 $341   $367     $327
Stardust $340, by Hotels.com   $373 $334 $245       $259
Stratosphere $233, by Hotels.com $244 $277 $233 $415 (4)     $400
Treasure Island $499, by TravelDealsHere.com $499 $499 $509 $527 $497 $498, by Orbitz   $497
Tropicana $499, by TravelDealsHere.com $499 $505 $541 $480     by Lodging.com $428
Venetian, The (1) (2)     $747 $750 $990, by Orbitz   $717


Legend

Notes
the official site
not applicable
savings > $5
plus/minus $5
overage > $5
(1) these listings did not appear in the initial search of SideStep, but they came up for specific search of the hotel names.
(2) these listings did not include pricing for the initial search of Travelocity, only a link to check rates and availability.
1/19/2005 Update - detailed pricing now appears on the initial search for Harrah's and the Venetian, and a price range now appears for the Riviera. Did the system "learn" and update itselft?
Disclaimer (3) these listings occur below the "red line" in the search of Hotels.com, and do not fit in with the primary listings.
I have tried my best to make sure all comparisons were apples vs. apples, but due to nature and amount of data involved, there are no gurantees. (4) these listings did not include pricing for the initial search of Orbitz, only a link to check rates and availability.
(note) Mobissimo's pricing lacked line-item detail necessary for an apples vs. apples comparison.
(note) FareChase was tested, but of our list of thirty hotels, it only found the Las Vegas Hilton.

A Brief Summary of the Hotel Search Engines

In this test, SideStep was far more comprehensive than newcomers Kayak.com and Mobissimo. The former only included incomplete listings from Orbitz, and the latter included incomplete listings from Lodging.com, plus a few other listings. Granted, Kayak.com is still in beta, and Mobissimo still has a "new" tag by the hotel search, so I'll have to keep tabs on them for future developments.

Most of the established travel aggregators returned enough results to be practically interchangeable. After all, what good is another listing or two if they are not remarkable in some way? What is interesting is how the leading travel sites are so different in the amenities availalable for advanced searching. I have documented these differences on the Hotels page of at Organized Shopping.

Does This Change The Way I Shop For Hotels?

Like I tell people who spend to much time looking at logfiles, avoid analysis unless it is likely to be actionable. Along those lines, I have clarified, and in one case refined, my process for searching hotels, as detailed below:

(1) Planning: Define what I am looking for in a hotel: location, amenities, price range. I prefer to define the goals upfront, then look for the right tool(s) for the job, instead of pre-selecting one tool and letting its limitation define my expectations.

(2) Searching: Go to the Hotels page of Organized Shopping, look at the comparison chart, see which sites allow me to search based on my most-wanted amenities, if applicable. This is new, because the hotel page was only updated while researching this post.

(3) Reviewing: Use these site(s) to arrive at a short list of candidates. Scan a few sites that aggregate hotel reviews to confirm my choice or raise red flags. Further refine my list to one candidate, or a small handful of hotels that are essentially interchangeable.

(4) Pricing: Check the prices at the official hotel site(s), and at least one aggregator, probably SideStep and maybe Expedia or Orbitz. Many hotels offer the best rates on their own sites, but sometimes you will find the best rate at the aggregators. Bottom line, no one site has the best price every time.

Future Travel Search Shootouts and Upgrades

I'm planning to do more types of travel shopping comparisons in the near future, including some commodity-driven searches (i.e. airfare) that could have narrowly-defined objectives and a single winner. I'll also be looking to upgrade the travel-related pages at Organized Shopping in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. As always, if you know of a uniquely useful shopping resource, or in this case a uniquely useful travel resource, please let me know. Thanks!

Travel Search Engine Shootout - Las Vegas Hotels
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 20, 2005 at 11:22 AM
Archived at Travel

FareChase Still Not Supporting Firefox

FireFox 1.0 vs. FareChase beta

"Browser Not Supported

The Yahoo! FareChase hotel search and car search do not currently support the browser you are using.

We do support Internet Explorer 5.1 and higher. Download the latest version of Internet Explorer.

We plan to support additional browsers and platform in a future release." (screenshot)

To be fair, the problem likely existed before Yahoo bought FareChase. Still, Yahoo has a habit of breaking stuff for "other" browsers, so I'm not optimistic about browser compatibility being a top priority.

Yo, Yahoo:

* Your beloved Internet Explorer is owned by Microsoft, a company that is ditching your search results in favor of their own search engine. For this and other reasons, you might want to consider them a competitor, and start getting cozy with their competitors.

* Another funny thing about this Internet Explorer. After installing the SideStep toolbar, it open a sidebar whenever I do a search at FareChase. Surely, SideStep is a competitor, with their seven million downloads? Hint: their toolbar is only a threat on IE.

Is FareChase doing anything special on Explorer that any of the other travel search engines have not been able to do on Firefox? To the untrained eye, it looks like all they are doing is throwing away market share in an ultra-competitive market.

added: I just received an email from Yahoo, which included this clarification: "Currently Yahoo! FareChase hotel and car search supports Windows Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher." (emphasis mine) Flights work with Firefox. I should have caught the last sentence of the FareChase FAQ.

FareChase Still Not Supporting Firefox
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 20, 2005 at 10:25 AM
Archived at Shopping Search Usability | Travel

LinkedIn Jobs

Charlene Li reports that LinkedIn introduced LinkedIn Jobs on Sunday.

"While small, LinkedIn's approach takes recruiting beyond today's current model of "list and hope" – both recruiters and candidates can "work the network" to get better information, leads, and matches throughout the process."

source: LinkIn gets a revenue stream through job listings

LinkedIn Jobs
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 19, 2005 at 12:51 PM
Archived at Jobs

Feedster adds Jobs Search Engine

"From its current sources, Feedster adds over 5,000 job postings to its index daily. This number will increase exponentially as several more significant resources add their feeds to the Feedster index and as RSS feeds become an important publishing media for timely and relevant information."

PR Web: Feedster Provides Online Resource for Job Seekers

via SEW Blog

Feedster adds Jobs Search Engine
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 19, 2005 at 12:43 PM
Archived at Jobs

Shopping Search Jobs - Quick Links

A condensed list of links:

Become.com Jobs
MSN Shopping Jobs
NexTag Jobs
PriceGrabber.com Jobs
Shopping.com Jobs
Shopzilla/BizRate.com Jobs
Yahoo! Shopping Jobs
(search: "yahoo shopping)

Shopping Search Jobs - Quick Links
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 16, 2005 at 10:07 AM
Archived at Employment

Shopping Search Jobs - Q1 2005 Snapshot

An archive of job openings at the shopping engines as of 1/15/2005.

Summary:
NexTag (28)
Shopping.com (18)
MSN Shopping (12)
Shopzilla/Bizrate (11)
Become.com (4)
Yahoo! Shopping (3)
Google (3)
PriceGrabber.com (n/a)

additional information...

NexTag Jobs (28) = US (17) + India (11)

NexTag US Jobs

Business Development
* Director, Business Development
* Business Development Manager
* Business Development Manager - Distribution
* Business Development, Category Development

Sales
* Account Executive
* Ad Sales Representative
* Business Development Associate
* Client Service Representative

Marketing
* Director, Offline Marketing
* Marketing Manager
* Marketing Analyst
* Product Management Analyst/Associate
* Media Buyer
* Marketing Associate

Operations
* Network Operations Manager
* Linux Systems Administrator
* Systems Administrator

NexTag India Jobs

Engineering
* Lead Developer
* Developer

Quality Assurance
* Lead QA Engineer
* QA Engineer
* Junior QA Engineer

Operations
* Lead IT Operations Engineer
* Systems Administrator
* Network Administrator
* Database Administrator

Business Development
* Data Entry Analyst
* Business Analyst

Shopping.com Jobs (18)

* Accounts Receivable Accountant
* Accounts Receivable Manager
* Classification Tools Engineer
* Counsel
* Database Engineer
* Integration Team Lead
* Product Catalog Specialist
* QA Director
* Release Engineer
* Search Engine Optimization Analyst
* Search Product Manager
* Security Engineer
* Sr. Account Executive
* Sr. Classifications Systems Engineer
* Sr. Software Engineer, Distribution
* Strategic Partnership Associate
* Systems Engineer
* Web Designer

MSN Shopping Jobs (12)

* Partner Account Manager Management
* Product Designer
* Program Manager Lead
* Program Manager (2)
* Software Development Engineer/Test Lead
* Software Development Engineer/Test (4)
* Software Development Engineer (2)

Shopzilla/BizRate.com Jobs (11)

Engineering
* C/C++ Search Engine Engineer
* Senior Perl Software Engineer

Finance & Accounting
* Controller
* Sr. Accountant

Research
* Account Manager

Sales
* Account Manager

Site
* Automation Engineer
* Business Operations Analyst
* QA Engineer
* Release Engineer
* Technical Project Manager

Become.com Jobs (4)

* Vice President of Public Relations
* Senior Director of Online Comparison Shopping
* Engineering
* Internet Shopping Researcher

Yahoo! Shopping Jobs (3)
(search: "yahoo shopping)

* Interaction Designer Shopping
* Product Manager 1
* Sr. Software Engineer

Google Jobs (3)

Advertising Operations
* Froogle Coordinator
* German Froogle Coordinator

Search Services / Syndication
* Strategic Partner Development Associate, Froogle

PriceGrabber.com Jobs (n/a)

Shopping Search Jobs - Q1 2005 Snapshot
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 15, 2005 at 11:38 AM
Archived at Employment

Google Fixed Froogle Security Bug

As reported by eWeek.com: Google Plugs Cookie-Theft Data Leak

In a statement sent to eWEEK.com, the search darling confirmed it was alerted to a "potential security vulnerability affecting Froogle," but no details were provided.

"We have since fixed this vulnerability, and all current and future Froogle users are protected," Google said.

This news is part of an eWeek.com special report, Exploiting Google.

Google Fixed Froogle Security Bug
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 15, 2005 at 9:34 AM
Archived at Froogle

Froogle Security Alert

Aviran Mordo is reporting a Serious flaw in Froogle Reveals Gmail Accounts.

"By embedding JavaScript in a URL pointing to Froogle, a hacker can gain access to the user’s Gmail account. The JavaScript redirects the browser to a malicious web site, where the hacker can read the user’s cookie, which contains personal information, such as purchase history, user name and password for Google services."

via WebmasterWorld: Major Froogle/Google/Groups/Gmail Security Bug found

Froogle Security Alert
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 14, 2005 at 11:46 AM
Archived at Froogle

Q&A with PriceGrabber.com's CEO at BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek has a Q&A session with PriceGrabber CEO Kamran Pourzanjani.

I have only one problem with this article. The main heading talks about a shopping aid, then the sub-heading uses the term price-comparison site, as if they were one and the same.

Price comparison and shopping comparison are not synonymous. Price comparison is only one part in the big picture of shopping comparison.

Admittedly, the site name includes the word price, and many people use it for price comparison, but PriceGrabber also includes feature finders, ratings and reviews. Industry insiders have said, "the percentage of people who sort by price is actually quite low." Patricia Seybold reported that price comparison was secondary to shopping activities such as product discovery and checking availability. If shoppers are looking beyond price comparison, we need to look beyond it, too.

Anyway, the article is a nice summary of what is going on over at PriceGrabber, check it out.

Q&A with PriceGrabber.com's CEO at BusinessWeek
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 14, 2005 at 9:23 AM
Archived at Price Comparison | PriceGrabber

Shopping Search Plug-ins for Firefox

By now, many serious searchers have found their way to the Firefox web browser. Among other things, Firefox allows you add your favorite search engines to the search box in the upper-right corner of the browser. Not only can you add general web search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Jeeves, you can also add site search engines for your most-used sites. Most of the major shopping engines have a plug-in, whether they know it or not. Here is a list of shopping engines with plug-ins (scroll down for the shopping category), including Bizrate, Froogle, Kelkoo, PriceGrabber, Shopping.com, Yahoo Shopping. Perhaps the most well-known shopping engine to not make the list was NexTag, but that could be because the list stopped updating several months ago.

Shopping Search Plug-ins for Firefox comments(2)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 13, 2005 at 4:01 PM
Archived at Online Shopping Engines

Organized Shopping Blog Looking Promising :-)

I do not want to clutter up this space with every little web mention, but can anyone blame me for doing a happy dance when Danny Sullivan gave this blog a nod on Search Engine Watch? Thanks Danny, and I'll keep working to deliver on this blog's early promise.

Organized Shopping Blog Looking Promising :-)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 13, 2005 at 3:43 PM
Archived at OrganizedShopping.com

2004 Online Shopping Trends From Shopping.com

2004 Shopping.com Consumer Demand Index Year-End Wrap-Up

includes:
+ Top 20 Shopping Searches (current week & previous week)
+ Top 10 Gaining Searches (the biggest % search increases)
+ What's Hot (chart showing % increases for one product)

2004 Online Shopping Trends From Shopping.com
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 12, 2005 at 6:15 PM
Archived at Shopping Search Industry

A Local Shopping Search Question

How long until one of the general shopping search engines adds a local shopping search component?

A Local Shopping Search Question comments(1)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 12, 2005 at 5:50 PM
Archived at Local Shopping Engines

Super-Short Summary of Local Shopping Search Engines

StepUp.com = local product finder
ShopLocal.com = local deal finder
LiveDeal.com = virtual yard sale

Super-Short Summary of Local Shopping Search Engines
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 12, 2005 at 2:28 PM
Archived at Local Shopping Engines

Hidden Features on Shopping.com

Shopping.com has possibly the most detailed product-attribute database on the Web. They allow you to make shopping selections based on everything from the L2 cache on a CPU, to the to the transmission feed of a fax machine, to the additional features on a vacuum cleaner. Sometimes, they even have product attributes that are not available at their Epinions site. It is safe to say that I find myself "feature finding" at Shopping.com more than any other general shopping comparison engine.

But there is a catch that feature-driven shoppers need to know about. Not all of these great features are visible when you first arrive at a product category page. Here is an illustration of the problem, along with a possible win/win solution:


These are the primary features for the PC Laptops category of Shopping.com.

These are the additional features for PC Laptops, located in the right-side box.

In each step, we click the first link in the right-side box and make a selection.

In the first instance, this produces an additional category, Operating Systems.

We select an Operating System and get a new feature link, CD / DVD Type.

Next, we get a link for Use (Home, Education, Corporate, Small Business).

Finally, after all of these steps, we get to select based on Networking Type.

The right-side list now has less than six links,
which means there are no more new choices.

Summary of Features

Visible - Price Range, Brand, Processor Speed, Processor Type, Installed RAM, Display Size, Hard Drive Capacity, Weight, Keyword

Hidden - Operating System, CD / DVD Type, Use, Networking Type

Summary of Problems

What if a shopper was primarily looking to select a laptop based on Operating System and/or CD / DVD Type?

Would they dig deeper to find these features, or would they figure those options were unavailable, and leave?

But what if we were to include more options, or all of the options, right from the beginning...

Would it overwhelm the shoppers who only want or need to make selections using the most basic features?

Would it effectively "break" the layout by pushing some valuable content "below the fold" of the first screen?

Recommendation for Shoppers

If you come to a category that has more than six links in the right-side box, dig deeper and see if it has hidden features. If so, you might want to drill down until you find all of the features, then return to the category home page for a new search, using the knowledge of the hidden categories to guide your navigation choices.

Recommendation for Shopping.com

Shopping.com should put a link at the bottom of the right-side lists called "browse all features" that would display all of the available options at the same time. This way, casual searchers would not be distracted, and power searchers would not be discouraged.

Hidden Features on Shopping.com
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 12, 2005 at 10:52 AM
Archived at Shopping.com

Shopping.com Sponsored Link Contracts With Google

US - source

"In the first nine months of 2003 and 2004, we derived approximately 34.4% and 44.1% of our revenues, respectively, from these agreements. Our revenues under these agreements generally depend on the amount Google charges its advertisers for the lead referrals, which we do not set. However, under one of our agreements with Google, we were guaranteed payments of $16.0 million during each of the 12-month periods ending April 30, 2003 and 2004, and under another of our agreements with Google, we are guaranteed payments of $500,000 per month through February 2005."

UK - source (note: GSA = Google Service Agreement)

"The GSA is effective through November 30, 2006. Shopping.com UK may terminate the GSA on October 31, 2005 by providing at least 30 days prior written notice to Google.
Shopping.com UK had a prior agreement with Google in the United Kingdom that accounted for 2% of Shopping.com Ltd.’s 2003 revenues."

Shopping.com Sponsored Link Contracts With Google
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 12, 2005 at 9:34 AM
Archived at Shopping.com

Shopping Search Marketing Vendors

I am starting to keep a list of companies that provide shopping search services such as comparison shopping development and shopping datafeed management. If you know of anyone offering similar services, let me know.

Shopping Search Marketing Vendors
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 11, 2005 at 11:18 AM
Archived at Shopping Search Vendors

Online Shopping's "Channel Share" Increases During Holidays

Patricia Seybold reports that online sales made up 10.5% of holiday sales -- which The Tech Report says is much more than its share of total sales -- and at least 30% of holiday sales were research online.

Also, from Seybold's "Cross-Channel Shopping Shines in the 2004 Holiday Season" PDF:

"...our research shows that many online shoppers actually spent more time learning about the features and options of particular products, and checking to see which merchants had particular products in stock, than they did comparing products on price alone."

Online Shopping's "Channel Share" Increases During Holidays
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 11, 2005 at 10:16 AM
Archived at Shopping Search Industry

Organized Shopping Is Mentioned At Pandia

I am thrilled and honored that my Year in Shopping Search 2004 has been picked up by Pandia Search World. Thanks to Per and Susanne Koch for their in-depth coverage of the search scene, of which this is a perfect example.

Organized Shopping Is Mentioned At Pandia
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 11, 2005 at 8:58 AM
Archived at OrganizedShopping.com

Become.com - Spider Sightings and Blog Spottings

The BecomeBot fist visited Organized Shopping on Decemeber 5th, and since then it has been back on more than a dozen days. Become.com's hungry spider is finding hard-to-find sites, but it is also being banned by some sites.

In other news, co-founder Michael Yang has resumed posting to his blog.

Become.com - Spider Sightings and Blog Spottings
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 9, 2005 at 1:43 PM
Archived at Become.com

Shopping Search & ROI/ROAS (PowerPoint)

Matthew Ledford's PowerPoint presentation from Shopping Search Tactics at SES Chicago is now available from ydesigns.com:

Shopping Search & ROI/ROAS (.PPT)

Shopping Search & ROI/ROAS (PowerPoint)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 9, 2005 at 9:58 AM
Archived at Shopping Search Industry

Froogle Zeitgeist 2004

Popular Consumer Electronics - ipod
Top Clothing Queries - bikini
Popular Computer Goods - tablet pc
Top Sports and Hobbies - poker chips
popular brand names - louis vuitton
popular shoe brands - ugg boots

For the top-ten lists in each of these categories, visit the Year End Google Zeitgeist 2004 and scroll down to Froogle Queries.

Froogle Zeitgeist 2004
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 9, 2005 at 9:37 AM
Archived at Froogle

Online Shopping Trends in the Year of the Women

Statistics included in Business Week's artice, Holiday E-Tailing's Year of the Woman:

"PriceGrabber, for one, saw spikes of 149% in jewelry, 239% in apparel, 153% in home and garden, and 313% in flowers, making consumer-electronics' gains of 121% look measly."

My gut feeling, based on my experience in collecting and comparing shopping resources in a wide variety of categories, is that high-growth areas like home & garden are lagging behind established areas like consumer electronics in the breadth and depth of their comparison shopping resources. Perhaps that gap will narrow before the next holiday shopping season.

Online Shopping Trends in the Year of the Women
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 7, 2005 at 10:35 AM
Archived at Shopping Search Industry

Subscribe to the Organized Shopping Blog

I am not too proud to beg to be Bloglined.

Nor am I opposed to being my.Yahoo'ed.

Note: for anyone who is still not using a feed aggregator, you are missing one of the most revolutionary developments since the birth of the World Wide Web. In fact, you might find that you are 10x more efficient and 10x more effective using the Web. Try it. You'll like it.

Subscribe to the Organized Shopping Blog
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 7, 2005 at 9:13 AM
Archived at OrganizedShopping.com

PriceGrabber's Revenue = $26.9M in 2003

Another scoop by way of the travel search engine article at FT.com:

"Pricegrabber's revenue has grown from $52,000 in 1999 to $26.9m in 2003."

A quick search traces it back to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 (PDF).

The "Fast 500 PDF" also mentions that PriceGrabber has 85 employees.

PriceGrabber's Revenue = $26.9M in 2003
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 6, 2005 at 8:42 AM
Archived at Financial | PriceGrabber

PriceGrabber Travel Search Engine

PriceGrabber has made public the flights-only piece of their upcoming travel search engine. Accorded to the Financial Times, PriceGrabber plans to add hotels and car rentals in the near future.

I'll be looking into this more in-depth as part of the upcoming Travel Search Engine Shootout. If it has any remarkable features, I'll add it to the Airfare page of the Organized Shopping project.

via the award-winning Search Engine Lowdown

PriceGrabber Travel Search Engine
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 6, 2005 at 8:24 AM
Archived at PriceGrabber | Travel

Link Usability in Shopping Search

Jakob Nielsen has a throught-provoking article on Reviving Advanced Hypertext. Under the section about Integrated Search and Browsing, he talks about the importance of annotating each navigation label with the number of search hits in the area it points to.

For example, if a user was searching at Henry Ford's Old-Time Car Site, and they could not decide between black and blue, but were cetain about not wanting orange or yellow, these link annotations would be useful:

Black (1000)
Blue (10)

...because the color black could allow for considerably more feature refinement. So, which shopping engines are giving their users the gift of foresight, and which ones are making them rely on hindsight?

Link Annotation at Shopping Search Engines:

Shopping.com YES
NexTag YES (all except for the price range)
Shopzilla YES (all except for the price range)
Yahoo Shopping YES (price range is not applicable)
MSN Shopping YES (although they often have too few attributes for meaningful refinement)
PriceGrabber NO

Not too shabby.

Are shopping search engines among the more usable sites on the Web?

Link Usability in Shopping Search
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 5, 2005 at 4:02 PM
Archived at Shopping Search Usability

SES Chicago: Shopping Search Sessions

I posted my notes over at the Shopping Search at SES thread (posts #4 and #5) in the Shopping Search Engines forum at Search Engine Watch.

Also, Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundable included links to his excellent coverage of Meet the Shopping Search Engines and Shopping Search Tactics in SES San Jose.

SES Chicago: Shopping Search Sessions
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 5, 2005 at 12:14 PM
Archived at Conferences

Marchex Announces New Shopping Search Agreements

"Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHX), a provider of technology-based merchant services that facilitate and drive growth in online transactions, today announced agreements with two of the Internet's leading product shopping services, through its TrafficLeader subsidiary, designed to provide expanded marketing and distribution opportunities for its merchant advertisers. The agreements are in addition to a series of similar arrangements Marchex announced with other participants in the online product shopping sector earlier this year."

source: http://www.marchex.com/press.html#news15

TrafficLeader appears to be ahead of the curve as one of the few companies focusing on shopping search campaign management. Surprising how few companies are promoting these types of services, considering how many companies are scrambling to do PPC management.

Marchex Announces New Shopping Search Agreements
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 3, 2005 at 7:21 PM
Archived at Shopping Search Vendors

The Shopping Search Epiphany

What is the shopping search epiphany?

It is when all the shopping information you could ever want falls perfectly into place. It is that magical moment when you realize there is a better way. It means no more buying something only to realize that you could have found twice the features for half the price.

My shopping search epiphany came while looking online for digital cameras using the buying guide at dpreview.com. It was the total package of usability and usefulness. I could not help but wonder, "why isn't shopping for everything this easy?"

For me, the next logical step was to create Organized Shopping to collect and compare all of these great online shopping resources. Unfortunately, definitive resources do not exist for every category. Yet, I believe we are in the early stages of raising our collective expectations of online shopping, and I look forward to tracking major breakthroughs in shopping search in the new year.

If you have found an epiphany-inducing shopping resource, please let me know.

The Shopping Search Epiphany
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 3, 2005 at 3:40 PM
Archived at OrganizedShopping.com

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (4 of 4)

Day #4 - summaries of United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong.

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (4 of 4)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 2, 2005 at 6:14 PM
Archived at Asia | Australia | Regional Shopping Engines | United Kingdom

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (3 of 4)

Day #3 - summaries of NexTag, PriceGrabber, Shopping.com/Dealtime and Yahoo Shopping.

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (3 of 4)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 2, 2005 at 6:12 PM
Archived at NexTag | Online Shopping Engines | PriceGrabber | Shopping.com | Yahoo! Shopping

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (2 of 4)

Day #2 - summaries of BizRate/Shopzilla, Froogle and MSN Shopping.

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (2 of 4)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 2, 2005 at 6:09 PM
Archived at Froogle | MSN Shopping | Online Shopping Engines | Shopzilla

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (1 of 4)

Day #1 - includes the top shopping search engines according to Hitwise, plus an overview of local shopping search engines.

Shopping Search Week 2004 at Search Engine Watch (1 of 4)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 2, 2005 at 6:06 PM
Archived at Local Shopping Engines



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