Comparison Shopping Engine Strategies

CSE 2.0 - Is TheFind.com the fastest growing second gen CSE?

Today TheFind.com announced that they are the fastest growing second generation CSE.   The releases states that they are on track to hit 1m uniques/m in April and have grown 540% since November, which is certainly impressive growth.   I have access to comscore and will post some data when it comes out for March.  In the Jan data, I do recall seeing  become at 2-3m uniques so they have a lead on uniques, but it's totally possible that TheFind is growing faster.

In a note from their PR folks they mention this puts them ahead of:   Shopwiki, Jellyfish, Pronto, Become, MyTriggers and Like.com.

It's always interesting to see who a company views as the competition and this is a good list.  I'd add ugenie.com and zeedive.com to the list and some more of the visual guys like shopstyle and Browsegoods.

I've started getting a fair number of requests from VCs and journalists that want to talk about CSE 2.0 and what's driving this next generation of CSEs.  I'll be posting some more thoughts on that later today and look forward to a dialog with subscribers.

ChannelAdvisor Catalyst Wrap-up...

Wow, what a week.  We had over 400 customers, partners and prospects down at Pinehurst, NC at our annual Catalyst conference.  CSEs were top of mind and we had a very strong showing from the folks at Shopping.com, Google Base (aka Google Product Search), Pricegrabber, Pronto, Jellyfish, TheFind and many others.   

From a CSE standpoint, the highlight was a presentation+panel run by Brian Smith@ComparisonEngines featuring:

• Cynthia Kwon from Google Base/Froogle/Product Search
• Trent Scoffield from Shopping.com
• Nathan Decker from evogear
• Lisa Bari from art.com

There were good discussions around the CSEs trends that retailers are seeing, etc.  Things got a little heated when what I call the CSE ROI death spiral was discussed.   The paradox goes as follows:

• Most CSEs only allow you to manage ROI by removing under-performing SKUs from the index.
• This results in a bad consumer experience because it reduces the selection
• This can cause the ROI of performing SKUs to under-perform (now go to the first bullet and you have a death spiral).

The end result as discussed by the panelists and some other attendees from large > 10k SKU retailers is that the number of sku's being fed to the CSEs diminishes over time with the exception of the holidays where you may refresh for that selling season.

This isn't a problem on Froogle as it's free.  Shopping.com didn't have a great answer for this, but I do suspect their cart trial will give them a CPA option where they can say if CPC isn't cutting the mustard move your products to the CPA/cart part of the marketplace. 

In any case, this issue is the biggest one facing retailers and CSEs today so we'll be spending a lot of time on it here at CSE Strategies in the coming weeks and it's a big focus for ChannelAdvisor from a software/solution standpoint.

Several folks have asked for a copy of my presentation on Ecommerce Trends which you can download here.

ChannelAdvisor Customer Wins for CSE...

Today, ChannelAdvisor announced a plethora of new customers that are using our full-service comparison shopping engine software+services.   Some of the customers we announced today are Brookstone, Cable Shopping Network, Calumet, Lucy Activewear and Personal Creations.

Our solution provides all the basic blocking and tackling of datafeed generation, optimization and management, BUT adds sophisticated revenue+margin tracking and ROI management on top of that foundation.  This allows retailers to look at CSE a channel where they can look at each SKU's performance and decide if they should keep promoting it or not.

Also our flexible merchandising options that allow a retailer to rapidly change their product information (descriptions, pricing, promo text, etc.) are receiving rave reviews.

John Lucy at Brookstone said:

 

“We looked at several critical factors during       our partner selection process including strong technology, industry       knowledge and a clear definition of services.   After       evaluating many companies who only send data feeds, we found       ChannelAdvisor’s approach was the one that       best solved each of our challenges and offered a true full service       solution.”

 

If you are using a vendor for your datafeeds and aren't happy with the turn around time or their ability to look at CSE as a sales channel and not just a feed consumer.  Give ChannelAdvisor a call, its time to take your CSE efforts to the next level.

Invitation to CSE Strategies readers - CA Catalyst!

If  you are actively involved in the Comparison Shopping Engine industry as a vendor or a retailer, you should seriously consider attending your upcoming Catalyst event.  With over 400 large retailers and all of the major CSEs represented, this is your chance to learn the advanced strategies you'll need to dramatically increase not only CSEs as a channel, but your ROI on CSEs.

Details are here.   We're nearing capacity so make sure you sign up ASAP.  In addition to this session:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

he Future  of Comparison Shopping
Moderator:	Brian Smith, Analyst,  ComparisonEngines.com
Panelists:	Cynthia Kwon, Strategic Partner Development, Google                                                              Trent Scoffield, Director, U.S. Sales & Client Services, Shopping.com                                                              Nathan Decker, Senior Manager of eCommerce, Evogear.com                               Lisa Bari, Partner Marketing Manager, Art.com

                        

Comparison Shopping Engines are becoming an integral part of the online consumer shopping experience. It is reported that 75% of all online purchases are made through comparison shopping. Brian will present the state of the comparison shopping world, including information about some of the new comparison shopping engines and some new business models offerings. Brian will also moderate a panel of comparison shopping engines providers and ask what they are doing to help retailers sell more.

There will be  CSE-focused round tables and representatives from all the major CSEs will be there ready to answer your questions. 

Finally, CA will be previewing something we think will change the way you work with CSEs FOREVER!  So you don't want to miss that.... (I'll probably get in trouble for posting this so don't tell anyone).