Shopping comparison engine presence at CES was sparse. While PriceGrabber had 2 large booths (both in key traffic areas) and an army of employees at the show, Shopping.com (SDC) had only 1 or 2 people at the show as part of eBay’s mini Skype/Paypal/SDC booth and Froogle had just one representative as part of Google’s booth. The head of MySimon was at the show, but MySimon and CNET Shopper weren’t part of CNET’s booth. The other key comparison engines (Yahoo! Shopping, NexTag and Shopzilla) were no shows. As for comparison engine partners (data management companies, co-brands, etc.), Channel Intelligence (CI) had a strong presence and Camcorderinfo.com/Digitalcamerainfo.com (a PriceGrabber partner) was well represented (if you’re a camcorder/camera junkie, definitely check out the sites).

Oh, and I ran into an early Junglee (one of the original comparison engines) employee who is currently working on mobile search start up called Medio (check out the team he’s assembled…very impressive group).

At first glance, CES is not the most logical place for a shopping comparison engine to spend money. eTail and Shop.org are better venues for targeting merchants. You could make an argument that the 130,000 attendees at CES are the perfect audience for a shopping comparison engine, but there are much more effective and efficient ways to reach consumers.

So why did PriceGrabber have such a strong presense?

Michelle Kane from PriceGrabber told me “we feel that CES is an ideal venue that brings together consumers, manufacturers, and retailers. Combined with our distribution partners, these bodies represent the four corners of our value proposition. The show enables us to meet with these key sectors in an environment that we feel is conducive to strengthening relationships and heightening awareness through all four segments. In terms of cost effectiveness, we feel the above objectives truly make our presence worthwhile. We are also sponsors of the Shop.org and eTail venues.”

Ok, I appreciate the 4 corners comment, but I think it really comes down to the manufacturers as PriceGrabber doesn’t get any data from Channel Intelligence (I mistakenly thought they did). Because of this, CES is a perfect venue for strengthening relationships with hundreds of manufacturers and demonstrating the company’s leadership as a powerful marketing channel for consumer electronics.