New Comparison Shopping Engine Coming to the US

August 20, 2010 3 Comments

There seems to be a new comparison shopping engine to join the already pretty stuffed US market. Sccope, which is operated by Cogenta Systems, Ltd., has launched in the US. Sccope is already active in the UK, but the London-based company wanted to beta test the US market. The interested thing about Sccope is that is it not like an ordinary comparison shopping engine, when it comes to the merchant’s perspective. Most US CSE’s allow direct feeds to be sent from the merchant to their servers. This allows for greater control over price and deals that the merchant might be running as well as inventory control. This also provides a good experience on the users end as well, giving the consumer knowledge that they are seeing the best prices and in-stock products.

Sccope works the same way as The Find does in regards to getting information from the retailers. They use web crawlers to scrape each site and gather the information that they need for their comparison engine. While this is easier for the retailers, it can be difficult to accomplish and could provide wrong information to the consumer. Large ecommerce sites change prices and quantities daily, some hourly. They need to have a way to provide this information to the comparison shopping engine so it can be reflected to the consumer. Sccope does not offer this as they do not accept direct feeds. The main issue I see with crawling sites for price data is that most retailers do not want their sites crawled like that. It takes up bandwidth and puts drain on the site as a whole. Most retailers will actually block the crawler from coming if it starts to provide performance issues. I am sure that Sccope is aware of this, but US retailers and UK retailers do different things and think a little differently. Just because it works in the UK, doesn’t mean it is going to work in the US.

In either case, I would like to welcome Sccope to the US market, and hope that their beta goes well. It can be hard to bring a new engine into this marketplace, but at least they have experience with running a successful CSE. Retailers can sign up for Sccope and have someone contact them to get set up. At this time, their website appears to have a sign up form that is still asking UK based questions. I hope they will change this soon, as most of the questions do not apply to US-based retailers.

Yahoo Shopping is No Longer……Now Powered by PriceGrabber

January 11, 2010 3 Comments

It seems that Yahoo Shopping is now partnering up with Pricegrabber in order to get its product listings. This means that anyone that has a Yahoo Shopping account and uses product submit to get their listings live on Yahoo will now have to do it via Pricegrabber. We are aware that many of your already have accounts with both shopping comparison sites, so this shouldn’t be a problem for you. It looks like it will be set up so you can control if you want products on Pricegrabber and Yahoo Shopping or just on Yahoo Shopping. Below is an email that was sent to advertisers about this change that will take effect on March 11, 2010.

Important: Product Submit changes coming soon. Action required.

Dear Advertiser,

We have important news that will affect your product listings on Yahoo! Shopping and that will require you to take action.

As of March 11, 2010, Yahoo! Shopping is partnering with PriceGrabber. This partnership will provide you with greater access to more potential customers and to enhanced reporting. It will give you the opportunity to list your products either on Yahoo! Shopping only or on both Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber.

Because of this change, your Yahoo! Product Submit account will no longer be available on March 11, 2010. After March 11, 2010, to list your products either on Yahoo! Shopping only or on Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber, you must sign up for a new merchant account with PriceGrabber. To ensure your products are live on Yahoo! Shopping on March 11, 2010, you must sign up for a PriceGrabber merchant account from January 11, 2010, through January 19, 2010. Signing up is fast and easy.

If you sign up before March 11, 2010, any applicable set up fees will be waived!

To start, just click the link below:

Sign up now for a new merchant account with PriceGrabber.

If you do nothing and do not sign up for a new merchant account, your products will only be listed on Yahoo! Shopping through March 11, 2010. After March 11, 2010, your products will no longer be listed.

PLEASE NOTE: If you already have a merchant account with PriceGrabber, you do not need to sign up for a new account. Your products will automatically be listed on both Pricegrabber and Yahoo! Shopping on March 11, 2010.

Your Key Dates to Remember:

January 11, 2010 January 19, 2010 March 11, 2010

Sign up for your new PriceGrabber merchant account with Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber or with just Yahoo! Shopping. Last day to sign up for a PriceGrabber merchant account to ensure your products are listed on Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber when Yahoo! Product Submit is discontinued on March 11, 2010. The Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber partnership takes effect. If you have not signed up for a new PriceGrabber merchant account, this is the last day your products will be listed on Yahoo! Shopping.

If you have any questions about this change, a Customer Care representative will be happy to answer them.

Best regards,
The Yahoo! Product Submit team

It looks to be just another thing that Yahoo is making easier for themselves just like the deal with had with Microsoft and Bing. This is good news for Pricegrabber as they are the ones that will power all the listings on Yahoo Shopping and thus make a good amount of money off of it. Now, does this mean that Yahoo Shopping portal is becoming just another affiliate in Pricegrabbers eyes or have they come up with a better rev sharing deal? Lets see how this pans out for Pricegrabber, Yahoo, and the retailers!

Build your Own Comparison Shopping Engine

December 21, 2009 32 Comments

Comparison shopping is a big industry with a few large companies at the helm. The biggest sites are the likes of Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Nextag, and others. People are starting to price compare before they purchase and they go to these type sites in order to get it done. Have you thought of starting your own price comparison engine to make some money online?

While you can create one from scratch if you have a coder, it will be very costly and time consuming. You will never have a change to catch up with the large players in this game. The best solution is to get a pre-made solution that you can tweak and market yourself. We are going to provide you with two easy ways to start your own comparison shopping engine.

DataFeedScripts.net – This company has created an out-0f-the-box solution for both the Shopping.com and Shopzilla API. Now, you might ask, why would you try to compete with them if you are going to use their API. We say that if you can take the time to properly market your site, you can be large like some other companies that use their API’s. You are not going to try and beat them, but just provide yourself with an opportunity to make money online. This script works on both API’s, but you have to choose either Shopping.com or Shopzilla as they are two different scripts. Both cost $250 for the license, but there is no monthly fee. You need to sign up for the Shopping.com Partner Program or the Shopzilla Partner Program first before paying for this script. They will need to approve you into the program and if you don’t get approved, then you would have wasted $250.

Once you get in the program, you can download this script and enter your API information. You need a web host that can handle ASP.net, which is usually a windows machine. It would be wise to place this script on it own domain if you had the opportunity to do so. You can change the colors and many different aspects of this script except for the API calls. This comparison shopping script is for all the categories on both Shoppping.com and Shopzilla. This will provide you with a general comparison shopping engine. You can get it customized, but it will cost you. You get paid by having someone click on the products within the script, so you are paid per click up to 80% of what Shopping and Shopzilla charge their merchants. You can also place Google Adsense into the script as well to earn a little extra. This is a good script that can help you earn a lot online if you are good at marketing and SEO.

DataFeedFile.com – This is a 3rd party aggregator that takes the products from merchant affiliate programs and creates a comparison shopping script for affiliates. This is a free script and provides a basic comparison shopping script. You will have to sign up for each individual affiliate program that you want to publish on your site. This script is best if you plan on doing a niche comparison shopping site, like electronics or automotive. This can be placed on a subdomain of a site you might already own or it can be used as a standalone site as well. You can customized things to make them look good and add any advertising that you wish. This is a good starting script to see if you can make it in the comparison shopping world and you don’t have to pay anything for it. You do need to sign up at Datafeedfile.com as an affiliate in order to get access to this script.

While these two options might not work for everyone, they are a great starting point to see if you have what it takes to customize and market a comparison shopping engine. These type of sites do extremely well around the holidays and if you run it properly, then you can make a good amount of money online without having to create a complex website with a lot of features. These out of the box solutions are great for anyone and can help you earn the chance for financial freedom online.

iMark Interactive