Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) are product marketing websites that display aggregated product offerings across multiple retailers. Examples include Shopping.com, Nextag.com, Shopzilla.com and PriceGrabber.com. Consumers often visit CSEs to find the most attractive offer on a product they have already determined they want to purchase. However, some consumers will also use CSEs as part of their product discovery and research process. Once on the CSE, the consumer is able to evaluate various offers from multiple retailers in one place, saving time while finding the best value.
CSE traffic is important to retailers because it represents a sizable set of internet users at some point in the buying cycle, and therefore in the retailer’s target audience. Most CSEs (including all the examples above) charge retailers on a per click basis. Every time a consumer clicks on the offer of a certain retailer, that retailer pays the CSE. The actual amount charged for each click varies by category and by CSE. On many of those CSEs that have this cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model, the retailer has the ability to increase the rate they are willing to pay for each click in exchange for increased visibility on the CSE. There are a few CSEs that are free, two such sites are Google Product Search and TheFind.com. In addition, other CSEs, including Microsoft Live Cash Back, charge not on a cost per click basis but on a cost per acquisition basis, meaning it collects a percentage of the sale price when a consumer makes a purchase.
In order for products to appear on CSEs, retailers must send a product data feed to each CSE on which they choose to advertise. The exact layout of the data feed varies by CSE, but all CSEs require a product price, title, description, image URL and action URL that links to the product page on the retailer’s website. The CSE processes the data from the feed into their system and displays the product information for consumers to search or browse through. When the consumer finds what they are looking for, they click on that offer and are delivered through the action URL to the retailer’s website.
The future of online shopping was and always will be these comparison shopping engines. They are a must for both buyers and retailers. The buyers to find the best info, price, etc. and for the retailer to reach these ready and willing buyers.
Posted by: charles | Sep 02, 2008 at 11:49 AM
The cost per acquistion (CPA) pricing model is not as popular as cost-per-click is for comparison shopping sites, but more sites are adopting the CPA model. An example is BizReveal.com. http://www.bizreveal.com
Posted by: Ola | Sep 10, 2008 at 06:08 AM
Ya such tools are crucial to sail through for both buyers and retailers.
Posted by: Amrendra | Sep 13, 2008 at 12:59 AM
We are developing a new platform for Comparison Shopping with unique never before available features. We Compare prices from multiple price comparison sites and return results from all the leading comparison shopping engines along with results from our own index.
While our product is still in development (expected launch in October), we are using the data we gather from the internet to post deals and bargains on our blog @ http://blog.centgram.com
If you'd like to be notified when we release the product, please visit us @ http://www.centgram.com and submit your email.
Posted by: Murali Bala | Sep 15, 2008 at 05:52 AM
CSEs seem way more flexible this year. We are having great success negotiating rates outside of rate card pricing for some of our merchants. This has been a big win for us. Press the CSEs. In certain categories (usually soft goods), they need you more than you need them.
Posted by: Rita | May 21, 2009 at 11:56 PM