NexTag completely re-brands (click to enlarge). It’s a much friendlier external face, similar to the changes the company has made internally:
Pricegrabber re-design (click to enlarge):
Big changes. Nice to see these guys try something different after all these years. These changes follow the Smarter.com redesign from a couple months back. Interesting to see these changes so far into the holiday shopping season.
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NexTag, PriceGrabber, Smarter.com | 
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Posted by Brian Smith
Smarter.com has a fashionable new site design.
Some interesting choices on the navigation/UI front. For example, when you click compare prices, you’re not sent to a product page. Instead, you get a popup. That’s much different than any other shopping engine out there. Same thing happens when clicking the Coupon button for any product listing. Also see much more content on product pages.
Will play around later and get back to you with my thoughts.
1 Comment | Smarter.com | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
Say what you want about MSFT and Bing, but if you’re a merchant, you should be submitting your data feed to Bing Cashback right now. Why? While some people think that Bing will do nothing for MSFT’s search market share, there’s a strong possibility that at least in the short term, with all the money that MSFT is throwing at its advertising campaign that Bing will gain consumer adoption. If that’s the case, then Bing Cashback will also benefit. And at this point Bing Cashback does not have the merchant coverage of the other shopping enignes which means less competition for each merchant. Add the fact that Bing Cashback is cost per acquisition (CPA) and there’s no risk to submit your feed. Now, there is the cost of getting up and running (creating a data feed and implementing Bing Cashback’s tracking solution), but now might just be the right time to go for it.
At the Microsoft Search Summit, the pundits had plenty of harsh words for the Bing team, but they also had some good ideas for Bing Cashback. As I tweeted today (#badabing), there were three great ideas: integration of coupons (take a look at Yahoo! Shopping, Smarter, and TheFind), addition of video reviews (take a look at Smarter/ExpoTV integration and heck, take a look at Ciao, which is part of the MSFT family), and clearer view of bottom line price (right now it’s not clear if the price listed is before or after cashback). I need to add to the list comprehensiveness (more merchants needed), addition of tax/shipping info, and social features. Ok, this last point is a little strange for me to even mention as I feel that most of the web x.0 ‘social shopping’ experiments have been a complete waste, but with the runaway success of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube and the obvious social aspect of shopping offline, there has to be a smart way for Bing Cashback to experiment in this area. Could be a nice differentiation point…maybe take a look at Pronto’s work in the area…or just talk to the team at Ciao.
8 Comments | Pronto, Smarter.com | Tagged: bing | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
A lot of people missed the emails sent by the shopping engines about seasonal rate increases, so here’s a quick summary:
Become.com – no rate increase
Yahoo! Shopping – no rate increase
Google Product Search – free
TheFind – free
Pronto – not holiday related, but there will be some adjustments, both up and down (Nov. 15)
Smarter.com – 20% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 1 – Dec. 31)
Shopzilla – 25% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 12 – Dec. 31)
PriceGrabber – 25% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 1 – Jan. 15)
NexTag – 25% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 1 – Jan. 2)
Shopping.com – 10-25% rate increase depending on category (Nov. 15 – Dec. 31)
Leave a Comment » | Become, Comparison Engines, NexTag, PriceGrabber, Pronto, Smarter.com, TheFind, Yahoo! Shopping | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
Herman, thanks for passing along…
MeziMedia, Inc.’s Financial Statements for the six-month periods ended June 30, 2007 and June 30, 2006. Note that MeziMedia is made up of more than just Smarter.com and revenue/expenses are not broken out by operating division.
Leave a Comment » | Comparison Engines, Financials, Smarter.com | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
My friend Greg Sterling thinks that most of the video reviews can be ‘excruciating to watch‘. He was responding to my post here and a slightly different version over at Search Engine Land. What do you think?
Greg and I are in total agreement that this is going to be an important part of the purchase process…it’s just a matter of time before we see them everywhere. How they’ll evolve is another question.
I don’t ask much from you readers out there, but some comments on the future of video product reviews would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Leave a Comment » | Comparison Engines, Smarter.com | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
The power of user generated content continues to amaze me. In early February, Smarter integrated video reviews into it’s shopping search listings. While not the only shopping engine stepping into video product reviews (ShopWiki has them too), I absolutely love the way Smarter displays these videos.
The screenshot highlights a product level view, but also notice the call out in the left hand nav which shows up for general search results or browsing (dental floss, camera phones, mice/trackballs, etc.)
Late last year I bought an electric razor. Too bad I didn’t see the Norelco Quadra review (click on Norelco Quadra to view), powered by Smarter partner Expo TV.
Expo TV provides the 24,000 product video reviews and Smarter.com matches them to the product level. And that’s the real beauty of the integration, as a part of product research, the video reviews are invaluable. According to Smarter’s product evangelist, Paul Willmes, “the reviews are by people who actually own [the product] which makes it more real. It makes the opinion more valuable, like a friend giving you advice.”
Expo TV pays for the reviews then an editorial staff reviews each video and rates it on a scale from 1 – 5. Smarter.com only takes reviews with a rating of 3 or higher.
My main question for Paul was whether the videos increase click-through or conversion rates for the merchants. According to Paul, “merchants have provided positive feedback and are asking how they list their own videos on Smarter. Where there is video available, click-through rate for products goes up.”
This presents some cool optimization opportunities for smart retailers…
7 Comments | Comparison Engines, Smarter.com | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
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Many of the shopping comparison engines allow merchants to specify ‘Promo text’ within the data feed. Shopzilla, for instance, allows a merchant to add pre-set promotional designations such as ‘Same Day Shipping’, ‘Price Before Rebate’, or ‘Gift with Purchase’. While adding this kind of promotional text is a step in the right direction, what about coupons? Aren’t all online shoppers now trained to look for coupons?
Users of Smarter.com and Yahoo! Shopping no longer have to leave these comparison engines to search for the latest coupon deals.
Smarter.com claims to be “among the first comparison shopping engines that allows [merchants] to integrate coupons at the product level. We’ve found that by including coupon info with your product listings, consumers see more of the ‘big picture’ before determining who to buy from (meaning more qualified leads to you).”
This is a no brainer for the comparison engines, and I’m really surprised that it’s taken so long for this type of coupon integration. See an example here and here. It’s nice to see the little guy innovating.
Yahoo! Shopping, with the data feed of of all data feeds (they accept sooo much information) has long allowed merchants to include promotional text. However, the site is now highlighting ‘Deals’ on product pages – see picture above. Users can click on a green link at the top of the page to see all offers associated with a product.
3 Comments | Comparison Engines, Coupons, Smarter.com, Yahoo! Shopping | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
Harry Tsao and Talmadge O’Neill are veterans of the PPC industry. They were both employees at Goto.com (which later became Overture Services and was then acquired by Yahoo!). Harry was an early member of the product management team and Talmadge was the first business development employee. In 2002, they left Overture and launched Coupon Mountain, focusing on helping consumers save money shopping online.
In 2003, the company expanded to offer coupon sites in a number of countries and is now in 10 countries including China, Japan, and Korea. The company also owns MoreRebates (launched in 2003). Smarter.com, the shopping comparison engine, launched in July 2004 leveraging the combined power of coupons and comparison shopping.
I was in LA a couple weeks ago and met with Talmadge, Harry, and Alan Wallace (VP of Corporate Communications). Here’s what they had to say. The comments are from Talmadge unless otherwise noted.
Company background…
“Most consumers use shopping engines to get a good deal, but they are missing part of the picture. Smarter.com provides more – reviews, research, pricing information, and promotional information. We didn’t call it Lowestprice.com for a reason.”
“Consumers are not librarians. From a search perspective, Google is trying to solve something really hard. 80% of that opportunity is better served by a shopping engine. Searching on Google only gives you ‘light introductions’ – pricing information and coupons.”
“Because of our experience at Goto.com, we understand the search query string and how the monetization piece works. The PPC market is $5 – $6 billion. While only 30% of queries are of commercial intent, those terms represent 90% of monetization which means approximately $5 billion in clicks is commercial. If I look at the paid search results [when thinking about shopping], they are of limited value to consumers. It’s the same with organic results as many review sites will show up that aren’t ready to sell.”
“Will users migrate from search engines to shopping engines? The better question is whether the most valuable users will migrate. If you’re looking for hiking trails in Yosemite, go to Google. If you’re looking for products, go to the shopping engines. We can provide a much better service to consumers looking to shop.”
On international expansion… Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Comparison Engines, Smarter.com | Permalink
Posted by Brian Smith
