Comparison Shopping Engine Strategies

More social shopping

This article from the La Crosse Tribune sums up the social shopping segment well.  I'd recommend a quick read.

Many users find it utterly addicting, logging on at least daily to see products that other people are looking for or have discovered. These members say the shopping lists their fellow users post are often funky, personal elements of self-expression, as much as that may sound like an overly exalted way of describing what is, after all, consumption.

"We want to create a million mini Oprah Winfreys," said ThisNext CEO Gordon Gould. "Why is she powerful? Because people think she's genuine, she's authentic. She's giving recommendations from the heart. We're (doing that and) scaling that across every product category across the Web."

Scott Hurff

Mo Money, Mo...social shopping deals

Stylefeeder and ThisNext just announced two big venture rounds.

Stylefeeder
And the $2mm Series A prize goes to Stylefeeder, the Cambridge-based startup that has its roots at MIT.  The site is technology-heavy in that there's some complex algorithms going on behind the scenes to match you up, recommend and direct you to people and products you'll probably like.  Onto the statistics:

• ~500,000 installs of their Facebook app with 3 percent of the install base active daily (~14,000) -- this active number is slightly lower than the cross-platform average of 5 percent. This is part of a different distribution strategy than ThisNext, which has focused on partnering with tight-knit niche communities and extending their functionality to those properties.  While Stylefeeder's app has a strong install base, I wonder how strong the traffic bleed is from Facebook to their site.
• ~150,000 uniques per month and a 400% increase in traffic since 12/06
• Second round after a seed investment of $1mm in October from Highland Capital Partners
• Makes money from affiliate links and branded profiles, like the Olson twins
• Raised cash from Schooner Capital and Highland Capital Partners
• Previous coverage here

ThisNext
LA-based ThisNext pulled down $5mm in a Series B round led by Anthem and Clearstone Venture Partners.  See my interview with CEO Gordon Gould here, who was previously with Blogsmith (WeblogsInc's blogging platform) and the Silicon Valley Reporter, which means that the company has close ties with Jason Calacanis. He also started Upoc, one of the largest mobile social networks.

• Previously raised $3.5mm
• ~400,000 uniques per month
• Facebook obviously hasn't been a focus -- 125 users on their app
• All about co-branding with strong niche communities and representing the influencers within those communities (example: Coolhunting)

So the space continues to heat up.  I'd recommend that merchants get involved on these sites and learn how they work. At the same time, I'd start becoming known on these sites as thought leaders in your particular space -- since you know the best products in your niche, start making that known. Build your own mini-communities. It's a natural extension of your brand and it'd be in a place where people are looking for that.

Written by Scott Hurff -- scott.hurff at channeladvisor

A Merchant's CSE

There have been lots of comments left on this blog about what CSEs do poorly and some ideas for how they should be doing things better.

I want to open the floodgates. 

I want to hear from all of you merchants, CSE execs / employees, e-commerce junkies and anyone else who has ideas for their 'perfect-world' CSE. 

What I want to do is gather your ideas, ideals, feedback and more and structure it in a new post later this week.

Some ideas:

• How would you send, track and manage feeds? Would feeds even exist?
• How would you pay for search placement, if at all?
• How would your perfect-world CSE promote the best merchants? The best deals?
• Would social shopping be a factor?
• What about SEM? How would you like your products promoted on the search engines?
• Email marketing resources
• What would it look like? How would it make users find your products better?
• Which CSE do you think does the best job right now? How could it build on top of that experience?
• Would it be creative like Jellyfish Smack?  What other "game-like" options would it offer?

So, here's the invitation.  Your forum is just a click away.

Comments open!

Written by Scott Hurff -- scott.hurff at channeladvisor

Shopzilla: 2007 a "rough year," loses top tech guy

There's new news afoot from Shopzilla in 2008 --

• Christophe Louvion leaves the company after 10 years for LA-based Gorilla Nation. He was, I hear, their top technical person, having basically built the site. He held a number of positions -- Software Architect, VP Ops, VP Product / Engineering, Agile Evangelist / Coach and "Uber Scrum Master."  Louvion blogged that "after spending the most part of the internet life time building Shopzilla, the biggest shopping search engine, I am moving on to running the technology at Gorilla Nation, the largest online ad sales rep firm." and that he's looking for talent. Gorilla Nation is a "one-stop shop for online advertisers & agencies looking to build brand awareness through high impact ad units and rich media across targeted content categories."
• Shopzilla had a "rough year," said CEO Ken Lowe, but must have benefited from the $29 billion in sales at the tail end of 2007.   Lowe also said that "bridges" would be built between Shopzilla and other Scripps Interactive properties.  I hope this means deeper integration and not just linkjuice for SEO, or even some lame product offerings embedded within stories.  There's a huge opportunity there to expose the product inventory outside of the main property.

Got anything else about this? Drop me a line at scott.hurff at channeladvisor

Retrevo is a great example of the niche CSE

When I spoke with Jon Glick of Become.com about the site's latest redesign, he reiterated that the site's mission was to "give people all the information they need to make ideal buying decisions."   In other words, the more product information people have, the more qualified they'll be as merchant referrals.

Retrevo is a niche consumer electronics CSE launched in much the same spirit.  The site aggregates user manuals, user ratings, "expert ratings," forums, blogs, and, of course, shopping referrals. Retrevo has been live for about a year now.

What's unique about Retrevo is that it doesn't stop with simply aggregating relevant material -- it assembles the breadth of information into a usable, standardized, simple product rating called a "Product Snapshot."

Retrevo's Product Snapshot maps your TV, camera, or other search onto a price / feature matrix and places the item in question within a tier like "better than average feature set in mid-range" or something akin to this -- also including whether the community's reviews stack up to a positive, neutral or negative endorsement.

Retrevo is also a sign of bigger things to come in the CSE industry -- vertical search engines specifically tailored for products used by clearly-defined audiences.  It's almost like using Game Genie on your old NES...Retrevo lets you shortcut it to the relevant stuff in the quickest way possible.

The site is powered by Yahoo! Shopping on the product search side.

Written by Scott Hurff -- scott.hurff at channeladvisor