Category “Shopping on the web”

• Mar 11, 2010 200th!

  This is the 200th article published in the category “Shopping on the web” on this blog. The first one was published in March 2006, was written in French and talked about Windows Live Shopping, a new CSE announced by Microsoft. Yes, CSEs (Comparative Shopping Engines, also called Shopping Search or Price Comparison websites…) would soon [...]

• Mar 08, 2010 Browsing through products: how could shopping engines innovate?

  This article is part of a series discussing what could be the perfect CSE for 2010. In a previous article, I discussed the opportunity for CSEs to implement a true product search, using product clustering for both hard and soft goods. Among the benefits of this approach is the ability to attach content to those [...]

• Feb 26, 2010 Google testing a credit card comparison tool in the UK

  From the Google AdWords blog: You may recall that towards the end of 2009, we began testing a new feature called AdWords Comparison Ads. This feature lets users compare multiple relevant offers with ease, and it provides advertisers with a new sophisticated and flexible cost per lead format. Speed is of the essence for many users, [...]

• Feb 25, 2010 Shopping engines and the “web of things”

  The “web of things” Yahoo! recently talking about its search strategy, and how it can still innovate on search: People don’t care about finding 5 million pages about Roger Federer, they want the one page with all the relevant information. If someone is looking for Black Eyed Peas, we want to show users a bubble with all [...]

• Feb 18, 2010 Google is fine-tuning its new design for web search

  Last November, Google has started testing a new design for its search, highlighting relevant verticals in a left-hand side column (à-la Bing). It seems Google has updated its design in the recent days. At first glance, this update features some aesthetic changes towards a more bland design(typical of Google products). More interesting: the most relevant [...]

• Feb 11, 2010 What would be the perfect CSE for 2010?

  ChannelDollars recently published an analysis of the CSE market in 2010, basically highlighting the fact CSEs in 2010 must evolve or disappear, being stuck between Google / Bing, the starting points of the web, and Amazon / Walmart, the big retailers and their associated marketplaces. This analysis ended with: Put simply, to change the tide, shopping [...]

• Feb 08, 2010 Hunch as a shopping recommendation tool

  What is Hunch? Hunch is the new startup of Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake; as such, it received quite a lot of attention when it was launched in March 2009 as a tool to help users make decisions. A kind of Yahoo! Answers-like, powered by the community, with an assistant approach: a series of questions that lead [...]

• Jan 11, 2010 Yahoo! Shopping US announces a deal with PriceGrabber

  Read on the Yahoo! Developer Network today: After careful consideration, we have decided to enter into a strategic partnership with PriceGrabber to power the Product Submit functionality of Yahoo! Shopping as of March 11, 2010. As a result of these changes, Yahoo! will no longer provide the Shopping Web Services API, including Shopping Results (the “Yahoo! [...]

• Jan 01, 2010 2009 in review

  Even if today is January 1st (by the way, happy 2010 to all of you :) ), I think it’s still time to look back at 2009, isn’t it? Here are a few professional and personal notes for 2009… The product that influenced me the most: Twitter I’ve started using Twitter in March, and since, it has [...]

• Nov 25, 2009 New shopping features by Google

  In the recent months and weeks, Google has tested / launched (the line between the two is more and more blurry) a set of shopping-related features that enhance Google Search, AdWords and Product Search; it culminated yesterday with the announce of important changes on Product Search and new ad formats for AdWords. Quick review and [...]

• Nov 19, 2009 TheFind launches price comparison service

  Today, TheFind introduces a new price comparison service on top of its product search. Not really innovative as all the “classic” price comparison services (think Shopzilla, Shopping.com, PriceGrabber, Kelkoo…) do it for years? True, but TheFind had some real challenges to solve on introducing such service: Being the most comprehensiveness shopping search engine today and partly [...]

• Nov 17, 2009 Review of the new BizRate

  Read on the Shopzilla Publisher Program Blog this morning: We’re excited to announce to our publishers that bizrateTMhas rolled out a redesign, and we think you’ll agree that it’s oh-so-sweet. The new bizrateTM brand launched today with a sleek new home page, piping hot search results pages, fresh product pages, and the tagline: search. compare. conquer. [...]

• Nov 11, 2009 BizRate testing new search result pages on its US site

  BizRate US is currently bucket-testing a complete make-over of its search result pages, including a new branding. Quick review of those changes… Bucket-testing branding changes… That’s a question I’ve asked myself a few times: how to bucket-test changes on your branding (new logo, new tagline…) ? Doing it on a sub-set of your site can be disturbing [...]

• Nov 06, 2009 Is grid view the new default view for CSEs?

  The latest redesign of Shopping.com puts the grid view as the default view. The new Pronto.com doesn’t have any list view anymore. Google is asking its merchants to provide high quality images, suggesting a revamped grid view might be in the works for its Product Search… Does grid view become the new default view for [...]

• Oct 14, 2009 TheFind relaunched as “buying engine”

  While Bing advertises itself as a “decision engine” (should we understand “shopping engine”?), TheFind relaunches itself today as a “buying engine”. From the press release: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 14. TheFind today unveiled a first-of-its-kind “buying engine” that helps shoppers find everything they need to make smart purchase decisions. TheFind now integrates Product Search, Coupon Search, [...]

• Oct 05, 2009 Follow-up on the new Pronto

  In July, I wrote about the revamping of Pronto. Since then, the shopping engine has improved its new version: from a branding / marketing / product perspective, I find this is one of the most appealing CSEs available today. Here are some quick notes about the changes I have spotted. New home page To introduce the new [...]

• Oct 02, 2009 New shopping features by Yahoo! and Google: an answer to Bing?

  Sure, the title of this post is misleading as it takes weeks or months for those big players to define, test and deliver such features on their search engines. That those recently announced shopping-related (and quite similar) features appear in a very similar timeline only shows how their product strategies are aligned: better understand the [...]

• Aug 04, 2009 About the Yahoo! / Microsoft search deal…

  For the past days, my Google Reader has been flooded by news and analysis regarding the Yahoo! / Microsoft deal about search. Among all those articles, this excerpt from a ReadWriteWeb article summarizes pretty well what I think about this deal: At its core, this agreement means that Yahoo has given up on its search engine [...]

• Aug 03, 2009 Apnoti, price comparison with real-time price check

  Yes, yes, real-time :) Launched today: The world’s first price search engine smart.apnoti.com with real-time technology will be launched on 3 August 2009, marking a new era in online shopping. The technical innovation from apnoti.com GmbH, based in Starnberg near Munich, Germany, checks all quotes from over 10,000 affiliated shops in real-time for every single product [...]

• Jul 12, 2009 Google testing new product module in search results?

  While searching on Google, I’ve spotted a Product Search module I haven’t seen before. I don’t know if it’s a new test by Google, or something that exists for a long time; but I find this module far more interesting than the common “3 merchant offers” modules usually embedded in Google Universal Search results. I was [...]

• Jul 09, 2009 Pronto introduces new brands

  Long time I hadn’t visited Pronto.com. Since my last visit (mid-08?), the look&feel of the homepage has not changed that much, but surprise, the category pages have a brand new layout. Also, the site structure has completely changed, Pronto.com being now split into 4 different brands. This change has been introduced in June 09 according [...]

• Jul 08, 2009 Faceted navigation: how data quality matters – the case of product navigation

  Faceted navigation (also called “guided navigation” or “parametric navigation”) is a design pattern frequently used by shopping engines; it’s indeed a convenient way to refine a search by applying filters. There is a good introduction of faceted navigation on Welie.com; and a really interesting article on User Interface Engineering to learn how to design good [...]

• Jul 05, 2009 Yahoo! SearchMonkey eases publication of product data

  Read on Yahoo! Search blog: Back in March 2009, we announced a simple way for site owners to embed video, games, and documents in Yahoo! Search results. Starting today, we are expanding this capability by giving site owners the power to display enhanced results for product pages, local information, events, news, and discussions. If your site’s data falls [...]

• Jun 04, 2009 TheFind is testing visual search

  From TheFind blog: Can you find shoes you love faster with images than with words? We’re testing out our new visual search site and want your feedback! As a thank you for completing the survey, we have included some great coupons from Bluefly, Shoebuy, and Naturals of Ashland. Here’s how it works: 1. Go go visual.thefind.com 2. Type in [...]

• Jun 01, 2009 New search result pages for Shopping.com US

  While browsing the US version of Shopping.com, I’ve found a few changes in the search result pages. I don’t know for how much time they are live, but what surprised me is the emphasis put on the LREC ad placement, by placing it at the top of the left side column – a position supposed [...]

• May 13, 2009 Google to use hProduct microformat to enhance its search result pages?

  At Google Searchology 2009 event, Google announced “Rich Snippets”, an initiative to leverage the benefits of structured data using microformats and RDFa (yes, very close initiative to Yahoo! SearchMonkey launched in H1′08). As explained on the Google Webmaster Tools blog: Google helps users find your page by showing them a small sample of that content — the “snippet.” We use [...]

• Apr 21, 2009 New green shopping features on TheFind

  On BusinessWire: TheFind, the leading vertical search engine for shopping, announced today that it is making green shopping search available on TheFind.com. TheFind’s fast-growing audience of over 11.5 million monthly shoppers [...]

• Apr 17, 2009 Browser extensions for shopping: the IE8 way

  Before the release of Internet Explorer 8, browsers could be enhanced through “fat” browser extensions to be downloaded and installed (i.e: eBay Browser Highlighter or StyleFeeder Personal Shopper): quite painful process to sometimes only test a new service… Then, we saw the rise of bookmarklets, small scripts added in the bookmark section of the browser [...]

• Apr 16, 2009 Cashback now integrated with Windows Live Products

  When I reviewed Windows Live Cashback back in May’08, I mentioned: “Still, the current cashback program is another vertical inside Windows Live Search, with currently no integration with Windows Live Products, the recently revamped shopping search of Microsoft“. Today, Windows Live Search blog announced a merged Windows Live Cashback / Windows Live Products experience: To bring you the best of [...]

• Apr 15, 2009 AOL Shopping US redesign

  Read on TechCrunch: In the midst of the recession, consumers are either cutting back on spending or actively looking to reduce expenses. And with retail sales plunging during March, decreasing by 1.1% compared to February, it looks like retailers are in for the long haul when its comes to the virtual drought in consumer spending. What [...]

• Apr 14, 2009 New grid view on Kelkoo

  Last week, we deployed a new grid view on Kelkoo. This redesign was quite a challenge for us: we felt the previous version was not provided enough data / value to the user. But at the same time we manage more than 10 different types of offers (“Shopping“, “Car“, “Holidays“, “Flight“, “Hotel“, “Car Hire“, “Credit [...]

• Apr 13, 2009 Shopoon becomes PureShopping

  Shopoon is a french shopping engine launched in 2006; and focused on fashion apparel and home decoration products. This week, Shopoon relaunched itself as PureShopping.  New brand and a new version of the site that is really interesting as it breaks with the “classic” aesthetic of shopping engines / price comparison websites. Here are below a [...]

• Mar 26, 2009 The rise of the awesome search bars (part2)

  Last September, I wrote “The rise of the awesome search bars” highlighting some recent innovations on search bars (either on browsers – like Firefox3 and Firefox Ubiquity ; or directly on web sites like Tripeedo). Those innovations provide easier access to data and services, including shopping services. In this part2, I’m presenting two other examples [...]

• Mar 25, 2009 R.I.P. Yahoo! FareChase

  On TechCrunch today: Yahoo is cutting more fat today by closing its travel bargains website FareChase, which it originallyacquired back in July 2004 and re-launched two years later. The company will be announcing the shut-down later today, and will start redirecting visitors of the service to its main travel site soon. The service let customers perform comparative searches for pricing [...]

• Mar 08, 2009 First screenshots of next-gen Microsoft Live Search

  This week, the first screenshots of the next-gen Microsoft Live Search – code-named Kumo – surfaced on the web following a leaked internal memo from Microsoft. The main feature of this new version seems to be the clustering of search results: Searching for “audi s8″ brings “parts“, “used“, “accessories“, “sale“… clusters Searching for “bose lifestyle 48” brings [...]

• Feb 23, 2009 Twenga introduces Q&A

  Twenga has launched a new Questions&Answers service on its FR site. Only available on some categories (i.e: Digital Cameras, Mobile Phones, MP3 Players), this new service is very similar to what Yahoo! Answer offers, including the premices of reputation management (askers can choose the best answer ; users can thumb up or down an answer…). [...]

• Feb 22, 2009 TheFind (yet another) redesign

  TheFind.com is now TheFind ; and this branding evolution comes with a new version of the site. The latest important changes were introduced in November, 2008; TheFind really keeps a fast pace to make its product evolve. A new homepage The new homepage gives more emphasis to the brand: a bigger logo and a new tagline ”Every Store. [...]

• Feb 08, 2009 New look&feel for Yahoo! Shopping US

  This new look&feel of Yahoo! Shopping US is mostly a redesign of the site header and the site background. I can imagine the first motivation for this redesign is to unify the header with the other Yahoo! properties. This new “universal header” now shared by most of the Yahoo! sites (i.e: Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Real Estate…) makes it [...]

• Feb 07, 2009 Fruugo is coming (but with so much hype)

  Fruugo is a finnish startup created in November, 2006 ; with important funding (“tens of millions of euros, employs a workforce of around 100 people” according to TechCrunch) . Still its product is only entering public (yet limited beta) these days. So yes, those facts create some hype around Fruugo : with so long incubation and [...]

• Jan 26, 2009 How to go beyond technical features to choose the right product? Mix faceted navigation with folksonomies

  When it comes to choosing the right product for your needs (let’s say a digital camera) among all the models available on the market, CSEs or retailers always use some sort of faceted navigation to let you drill down on their product database. And very often the facets proposed by those sites are limited to [...]

• Jan 04, 2009 BeatMyPrice, a “people-powered price comparison engine”

  (as this is my first post of 2009, I wish you a happy new year :) ) Read on Mashable: BeatMyPrice is a stunningly simple “people-powered price comparison engine” – enter the item name, the price to beat and where you found it on the web, and BeatMyPrice will compare that to data entered by other visitors. If [...]

• Dec 31, 2008 Google Product Search gaining market shares in the US

  Read on SearchEngineLand: Google’s Product Search Catching Up Fast With Shopping Rivals from Investor Business Daily reports on a comScore release that Google’s Product Search is gaining in the category of shopping search. In fact, Google Product Search is up 786% from the year-ago November. [...] Back to the shopping search category, where Yahoo still leads the category [...]

• Dec 23, 2008 Getting product reviews when shopping in-store

  Read on EurekAlert, a research portal: Scientists at Toshiba’s Corporate Research and Development Center, in Japan have developed a system that offers shoppers advice on what to buy based on the product barcode and the current weblog buzz around the gadget. [...] Takahiron Kawamura and colleagues have developed WOM (word-of-mouth) Scouter to allow shoppers to get [...]

• Dec 17, 2008 The draft specification of the hProduct microformat has been published

  After a few months of work, Jay Myers from BestBuy and Paul Lee from Google Product Search have published the first draft specification of the hProduct microformat. As explained in the introduction of this specification: The web is a thriving consumer marketplace with a plethora of manufacturers and vendors scattered across the globe. Sifting through massive [...]

• Dec 15, 2008 Twenga to launch its iPhone version

  Accessoweb has the first screenshots of the upcoming iPhone version of Twenga:             From the screenshots and the video on the Accessoweb article, this new iPhone app brings a product search; technical details, best prices and reviews for each product; and “add to my selection” option. So far, it doesn’t seem to use advanced iPhone features like [...]

• Dec 14, 2008 Google testing SearchMonkey-like feature

  Read on SearchEngineLand: Google is testing a number of changes to its search results [...] The most dramatic of the changes involving reviews of products and services that appear on Yelp, Citysearch, CNET, TripAdvisor and Download.com. The system, which Google has yet to give an official name, allows these publishers to flag data on their web pages [...]

• Dec 07, 2008 Leaving Yahoo!…

  So the news came out when I was on holidays: Yahoo! has decided to sell Kelkoo to a UK Private Equity firm named Jamplant. Apparently, there was no official announcement by Yahoo!, and the first blog to relay this news was Pierre Chappaz’s, with the publication of an internal memo announcing the decision and his personal [...]

• Nov 10, 2008 On holidays for 3 weeks…

  … in New Zealand. I have really great expectations regarding this destination ;) And I think I have never prepared and planned any holidays so much. Maybe because we have hired a car to go from Auckland (north island) to Queenstown (south island); having a car, and not relying on public transportation, means it’s easier to [...]

• Nov 08, 2008 Revamped local results on TheFind

  TheFind.com has revamped its local shopping result page: simplified user interface, bigger map, better interaction with the map (store name directly mentioned, direct access to products from any local store, “get driving directions” link)… This is a subtile redesign: no new flashy feature, but interesting to see how details are sorted out. Overall, it provides [...]

• Oct 28, 2008 Economic crisis: is it good for CSEs?

  Well, yes, according to two recent articles (discussing the European market): On e-Consultancy: Online retailers are increasingly benefiting from marketing their products on shopping comparison sites as cash-strapped consumers seek bargains online, according to research published today by E-consultancy and DoubleClick.  Some 43% of retailers surveyed by online research publisher E-consultancy say that the proportion of online sales [...]