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The Shopping ProcessThe Netflix Prize & The Need For Different ApproachesHere's an inspirational article for anyone hacking away on new ideas after midnight. Wired: This Psychologist Might Outsmart the Math Brains Competing for the Netflix Prize related question: is the current progress in comparison shopping too incremental?
The Netflix Prize & The Need For Different Approaches
Can Product-Matching Learn From Candidate-Matching?continuing my thoughts on candidate-matching engines... topics include: Criteria-Weights
This was the feature that really got me thinking. The majority of candidate-matching engines have criteria-weights, unlike the shopping engines who rarely use it.* When I had to use this feature on the candidate-matching sites it felt... incredibly annoying. The weights were in a constant state of flux. On the initial questions, weighting often felt like a coin-flip decision. And future questions made me re-think the relationship with prior weights! Overall, I did not feel comfortable with this feature. There was one glorious exception, the sliding-scales method of USAToday. It was optional. It was after-the-fact. It was interactive. It just felt right. * Actually, progressive-elimination attribute engines do have a subtle form of criteria-weighting. The first attribute you select is the most important. The next attribute is the next most important, and so on. A La Cart vs. Guided Process
Many of the candidate-matching engines require their participants to answer every question. Or if they allow non-responses, they do not draw attention to it. In contrast, shopping engines have gravitated towards the a-la-cart model of comparison. Select an attribute, see updated results, repeat, or stop anytime... It's been awhile, but I thought more shopping engines employed wizards in the dot-com days. If so many analytics-conscious sites use one method, does that mean the market has spoken? Or is guided-process simply more resource-intensive to setup across categories? To me, a-la-cart comparison feels more natural, more empowering. Yet I wonder if some people would prefer the guidance of the "wizard" approach, if done correctly? Best Match vs 100% Match
Another interesting dynamic... the "wizards" rarely find results that match your criteria exactly. As opposed to most shopping engines, where every result must match your criteria exactly. Because the wizards seek the best match, instead of a perfect match, they are able to juggle more criteria. This could help when you have trouble prioritizing or narrowing your criteria. Put another way, I think the exact-match drilldown is at its best when every criteria is critical. But when there many nice-to-have criteria, you have to be very careful with "sudden death" attribute filtering. Miscellanous...Did you notice that PriceGrabber's (excellent) Candidate Match tool uses a start-to-finish format that is different than the default comparison shopping format? * It is because the answers are too long and too numerous? * It is because the results are not intended to be actionable? * Is it needed for aggregating results and sharing w/ friends? SummaryI do not think the "wizard" format is any threat to the default comparison shopping format, but it could be a useful in certain situations. I think anyone wanting to create a comparison engine should have a full set of tools in their "tool belt" and keep those tools as sharp as possible.
Can Product-Matching Learn From Candidate-Matching?
Fear of Comparison ShoppingEverybody likes comparison shopping, right? I do, you do, and so do millions of people. What's not to like? Yet, people can be actively, aggressively anti-comparison. At least in certain situations. You see that kind of resistance with the candidate-matching sites. I suspect many people do NOT want to know how they disagree with their favorite candidate. Or, heaven forbid, discover they align with another candidate. So they do the most logical illogical thing... avoid these sites completely. Okay, I can understand the people who are busy, see the longer quizzes, do a quick cost-benefit analysis and say not now. I'm not thinking about them. I'm thinking about the people who see a comparison-matrix as a real threat to their brand loyalty. Can the "anti-comparers" be brought around to a comparison mindset? Is it worth the effort? What kind of anti-comparison sentiments are present in other markets? In building a niche comparison engine, I'm compelled to consider these questions. Because depending on the answers, I might spend less time on features and more time on communication.
Fear of Comparison Shopping
Shopping Toolbarsecommerce-guide.com reports on shopping toolbars from SquareTrade, NexTag and Vendio.
Shopping Toolbars
How Would You Shop For a Digital Camera?Awhile back, David Beach had a post about how he shopped for a digital camera. Good stuff, because rarely do you see anyone document their shopping process in that kind of detail on the Web. I've seen some posts that promise to detail the process, but they start with price comparison, leaving out all of the good stuff. How would you shop for a digital camera? Can I this question in the shark tank of industry insiders? I would love to see more perspectives on this issue. What is the step-by-step process you would use to find what to buy and where to buy? What online sites or offline stores would you use, and why? The format could be free-flowing paragraphs or a bulleted list, whichever is easiest. How would you shop for a digital camera?
How Would You Shop For a Digital Camera?
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