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8 Responses to NYTimes Article on Comparison Shopping
Well I think mytriggers.com concept is interesting – it’s a useful feature and was so on Dulance when it was up. I found the article amusing because the idea of pay per action isn’t “new.” If you replace that with the word affiliate it means almost exactly the same thing. I mention this because the test search item (8 GB Ipod Nano) on mytriggers.com is displaying results from Amazon, Amazon marketplace, and CJ through their own redirector. I mean I respect the amount of work making a super affiliate site and then normalizing multiple web services such as Amazon’s and CJs to make sure you have a single interface but that’s not the newsworthy portion of mytriggers.com. It’s the pricing triggers which allow you to get updates via RSS, email or IM (if they have implemented that – it was still in development last time I checked)
Yes, mytrigger.com is quite mistaken in its claim to be the first CPA-based comparison engine. Shop.com, JellyFish.com, and PriceFight.com beat them to the punch. Arguably, other players such as Pronto, Pricegrabber (storefronts), and Shopping.com all made it to the finish line first. I am curious, how they are making commissions on the “more than 1 million online sellers” in their index if they are not crawling or partnering with a CPC-based site. Does including ebay in your listings constitute the ability to claim over a million stores?
I have spoken to a number of these groups claiming to be the first CPA-based/consumer rebate comparison engine, and I’ve had to tell them that they are all wrong – for one, Cashstore.fr has been giving consumers a portion of their commissions for a long time.
Anyone have good results on mytrigger or the other engines mentioned?
What’s the point of CPA? How will CPA help users? Why should a user decide between a CPA or CPC-based comparison engine? Why does it even matter for users?
The only new site doing anything interesting is Jellyfish, because they give money back to the user for purchasing through the site. What is actually going on is that Jellyfish is giving a cut of its revenue from its sales, so, in essence, Jellyfish is making less money so users can get more money back.
With this coverage, MyTriggers has the traffic now. It’s time for them to do something with it.
You’re right. On the surface there is no reason why the end user would care about the business model driving the results. However, in my opinion, there are a couple subtle, but very important reasons CPA is inherently better for customers.
1. All of the major engines sort retailers by bid price rather than product price. With CPC there is a financial incentive to confuse customers by displaying results that will garner more revenue rather than displaying results that are more relevant.
2. Retailers are removing significant portions of their catalog where margins on a CPC engine do not justify advertising expenses. A CPA based model is a more predictable advertising expense. CPA engines should eventually have much more comprehensive product listings.
My congratulations goes out to the mytriggers team for joining the other CPA engines on the market. The current popularity of the model points to the fact that something does need to change.
Ahh, seems like Bob is actually checking relevant sources. His article on Piperlime (the new Gap Store) was practically written by Gap PR.
Well I think mytriggers.com concept is interesting – it’s a useful feature and was so on Dulance when it was up. I found the article amusing because the idea of pay per action isn’t “new.” If you replace that with the word affiliate it means almost exactly the same thing. I mention this because the test search item (8 GB Ipod Nano) on mytriggers.com is displaying results from Amazon, Amazon marketplace, and CJ through their own redirector. I mean I respect the amount of work making a super affiliate site and then normalizing multiple web services such as Amazon’s and CJs to make sure you have a single interface but that’s not the newsworthy portion of mytriggers.com. It’s the pricing triggers which allow you to get updates via RSS, email or IM (if they have implemented that – it was still in development last time I checked)
Yes, mytrigger.com is quite mistaken in its claim to be the first CPA-based comparison engine. Shop.com, JellyFish.com, and PriceFight.com beat them to the punch. Arguably, other players such as Pronto, Pricegrabber (storefronts), and Shopping.com all made it to the finish line first. I am curious, how they are making commissions on the “more than 1 million online sellers” in their index if they are not crawling or partnering with a CPC-based site. Does including ebay in your listings constitute the ability to claim over a million stores?
My mistake. Pronto is, in fact, only CPC-based.
I have spoken to a number of these groups claiming to be the first CPA-based/consumer rebate comparison engine, and I’ve had to tell them that they are all wrong – for one, Cashstore.fr has been giving consumers a portion of their commissions for a long time.
Anyone have good results on mytrigger or the other engines mentioned?
The Truth:
What’s the point of CPA? How will CPA help users? Why should a user decide between a CPA or CPC-based comparison engine? Why does it even matter for users?
The only new site doing anything interesting is Jellyfish, because they give money back to the user for purchasing through the site. What is actually going on is that Jellyfish is giving a cut of its revenue from its sales, so, in essence, Jellyfish is making less money so users can get more money back.
With this coverage, MyTriggers has the traffic now. It’s time for them to do something with it.
Hey “truth” – read what I wrote. Jellyfish isn’t the first or only engine offering commissions back to the user.
nothingbutthetruth:
You’re right. On the surface there is no reason why the end user would care about the business model driving the results. However, in my opinion, there are a couple subtle, but very important reasons CPA is inherently better for customers.
1. All of the major engines sort retailers by bid price rather than product price. With CPC there is a financial incentive to confuse customers by displaying results that will garner more revenue rather than displaying results that are more relevant.
2. Retailers are removing significant portions of their catalog where margins on a CPC engine do not justify advertising expenses. A CPA based model is a more predictable advertising expense. CPA engines should eventually have much more comprehensive product listings.
My congratulations goes out to the mytriggers team for joining the other CPA engines on the market. The current popularity of the model points to the fact that something does need to change.