ComparisonEngines

The shopping engines always change little things around, but it looks like they’ve all made (or are currently testing) some bigger UI changes the last couple weeks (ok, some of these are months old!) in preparation for the holiday shopping season. Most notably, I’ve seen changes on PriceGrabber and Shopping.com. I’ll highlight a couple PriceGrabber changes in this post and hit on SDC changes in another post.

1. Highlighting merchants on the search results pages. As opposed to having to click through to compare prices, consumers can now see the 3 lowest prices available (assuming there are three offers available).  ShopWiki used to to the same exact thing, but actually changed their format since last I looked carefully. Merchants should definitely be aware of this change and monitor their results closely.  From PriceGrabber’s perspective, I’m sure it’s a great way to increase # of clicks, but that doesn’ t mean the consumers clicking are more targeted than they would have been clicking from a compare prices page.  Screenshots:

PriceGrabber:

ShopWiki:

2.  Highlighting more merchants on the search results page.  Not only is PriceGrabber pushing merchants directly from the search results page on the right hand side, btu you can also mouse over a link that says ‘x sellers’ where x represents the number of sellers who offer the product and see a couple offers through a pop up without having to click through to the compare prices page.

3. Highlighting that consumers can SAVE MONEY. Pretty much an exact duplicate of what Become.com implemented a couple months ago, PriceGrabber now highlights % off numbers for consumers with a little red button on top of a product image.

4. Continuing the advertising theme from earlier today, PriceGrabber is now giving premium real estate to text advertisements on the compare prices page, right below the product description and above the merchant listings.  In most of my clicking around, I found the same ad for AT&T.  The ad seems to be completely unrelated to whatever product page you’re on, but it’s sorta subtle, so I guess no one is complaining.

5. I can’t figure out how to spawn these pop ups (they might just show up after a set amount of time), but PriceGrabber has added price alert pop ups to the compare prices page.  I LOVE these ads…and yes, they are ads as they are ‘sponsored’ by an advertiser and include Google AdSense links.  Brilliant way to generate some more page views and therefore more revenue.  BUT, more importantly from a pure marketer’s perspective, I’ve always said that an in-house email list is like platinum because these are people who have at least expressed interest in your product/service and therefore are inclined to receive information from you.  You’ll notice that PriceGrabber is also opting in all those who sign up for a price alert for the PriceGrabber newsletter.  Nice!

Ok, there are many more changes, but those are some of the bigger UI ones that stand out.

Pricegrabber says that consumers are spending less this year on Halloween Costumes than they did last year.  Based on the number of click-throughs on particular Halloween items on the site, “the average costume spend for men and women has declined from $57 in 2007 to $39 in 2008, a 30% dip.  We also found that adult costume sales are down 31.6 percent from 2007 and children’s  costume sales are down 45.4 percent”

However, the National Retail Federation put out a report on September 30th that said “the average person plans to spend $66.54 on the holiday, up from $64.82 one year ago.” The study claims that “after months of bleak economic news, consumers are looking for a reason to let loose,” said Phil Rist, Vice President of Strategy for BIGresearch. “And with Halloween falling on a Friday this year, consumers may plan to celebrate all weekend long.”

Makes some sense, but the report was released before the financial winter really started to set in…

So what about you?

As for the top costumes, according to PriceGrabber, women are going for:

1) Goddess Adult Sexy of Love Costume

2) GHOSTBUSTERS SEXY – ADULT MEDIUM COSTUME

3) (CL) Adult Sexy Sailor Girl Costume

Men are going for:

1) Adult Halo 3 Deluxe Master Chief Costume

2) Batman Dark Knight – Batman Grand Heritage Collection

3) Adult Batman Dark Knight The Joker Costume

According to this Bloomberg article:

Experian Group Ltd., the world’s largest credit-checking company, said “lots of interest from private-equity and listed companies” in the PriceGrabber price- comparison Web site prompted it to consider selling the unit.

[thanks for the tip, Colin]

Now the interesting part is figuring out who the listed companies might be. Already fielded a couple calls on the subject this morning, and I’m truthfully having trouble pinpointing this one.