In the profitable Web search market, comparison shopping engines have become a promising niche, and industry heavyweights want a piece of the action.
The economic downturn, healthy broadband adoption and renewed interest in Web search has proved a boon for companies that specialize in helping people locate products for the lowest price online. Shoppers can use comparison engines as a real-time buyer's guide: They can type in a product name, like "Canon PowerShot A70," to find where the item is sold; compare prices and product details at stores; calculate tax and shipping fees; read consumer reviews; and buy the best one directly from the site.
Many Web surfers could benefit from such features: As many as 40 percent of surfers look for information on products or services while using a general search engine, according to industry estimates. But not all of them find exactly what they're looking for using engines such as Google or Yahoo. That could be causing people to head to specialty product comparison sites like DealTime or PriceGrabber.com. The percentage of the Web population that use comparison shopping indexes went up from about 9 percent in 2002 to nearly 15 percent in 2003, according to recent research from Nielsen/NetRatings.
"The market has grown tremendously over the last year," said Rob Leathern, director and senior analyst at Nielsen. He added that in the last year alone, the number of visitors to shopping comparison sites has shot up by more than 100 percent. In contrast, top-ranked sites Google and eBay grew by about 40 percent.
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The economic downturn, healthy broadband adoption and renewed interest in Web search has proved a boon for companies that specialize in helping people locate products for the lowest price online. Shoppers can use comparison engines as a real-time buyer's guide: They can type in a product name, like "Canon PowerShot A70," to find where the item is sold; compare prices and product details at stores; calculate tax and shipping fees; read consumer reviews; and buy the best one directly from the site.
Many Web surfers could benefit from such features: As many as 40 percent of surfers look for information on products or services while using a general search engine, according to industry estimates. But not all of them find exactly what they're looking for using engines such as Google or Yahoo. That could be causing people to head to specialty product comparison sites like DealTime or PriceGrabber.com. The percentage of the Web population that use comparison shopping indexes went up from about 9 percent in 2002 to nearly 15 percent in 2003, according to recent research from Nielsen/NetRatings.
"The market has grown tremendously over the last year," said Rob Leathern, director and senior analyst at Nielsen. He added that in the last year alone, the number of visitors to shopping comparison sites has shot up by more than 100 percent. In contrast, top-ranked sites Google and eBay grew by about 40 percent.
http://rss.com.com/2100-1024_3-5080009.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news