Just finished a quick call with Farhad Mohit, Shopzilla Founder and Chief Product Officer.
How did this deal come about?
Lots of people have been interested in the space. Shopzilla has been biting its toungue while competitors spoke about unique user statistics. We’ve been concentrating on revenue, and you can now see we think we’ll do very well this year. You have to look at the sources of traffic and the quality of that traffic. Shopzilla does not do business with pop-up companies, spyware, etc. We get the right person and hook them up with the right merchant. This deal lets us accelerate our growth through the synergies of our companies.
How will this change Shopzilla’s business?
In many ways, it won’t change. Shopzilla will be a stand alone and independent company. All of the top management – which has been together for 7-9 years – will stay at the company.
At the same time, the deal helps us because we now have the tremendous resources of a large media conglomerate which owns numerous newspapers, TV stations, and cable and satellite TV programming networks. Scripps has a huge offline presence.
Shopping is a trillion dollar industry, and we are at the very early innings of the game. We wanted a seat at the table. Working with a $8B company will certainly give us that seat at the table.
How do you see Shopzilla fitting into the world of Scripps?
We’re the best commerce network in terms of shopping for soft goods and more women [who shop for these products] are coming online. We don’t concentrate on mortgages or travel. Home & Garden and Clothing are our leading categories, not home electronics. And Scripps owns the DIY network, Fine Living, etc.
Content and commerce are king. Scripps has the content, Shopzilla has the commerce. Also, Shopzilla is good at online marketing – search engine marketing, search enigne optimization – while Scripps is great offline where they have a broad reach of 90m homes.
A killer application for shopping hasn’t been created yet. While specifics haven’t been decided, we’re going to combine the best of both worlds in whatever way makes sense to build that killer app. Shopzilla has more stores, the best technology, and we find the lowest price; we’ll win in the long run.
