Category “Shopping on the web”

• Aug 30, 2010 An awesome iPad application by Become.com

  Most CSEs now have an iPhone application, but few of them have launched a dedicated app for the iPad yet. When Nextag and Pricegrabber launched their own iPad apps, those apps were mostly the existing iPhone apps adapted to the bigger screen of the iPad. As a consequence, while being quite efficient, they were also [...]

• Aug 25, 2010 How Peryskop harnesses the power of product reviews to enhance product selection

  Poland is a 38M people country – which is quite important for European standards – and as such sees a lot of local start-ups developing innovative ideas and products. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for me to review Polish sites as I don’t know a single word in Polish; which is a shame considering there are some [...]

• Aug 11, 2010 Two UI tidbits at Zappos/Amazon

  Here are two nice UI elements that I have recently discovered on the Zappos and Amazon websites. Multiple-image browsing at Zappos It’s common to see multiple-image browsing on product pages, but it’s pretty rare on search result pages. And it always comes with more UI weight (icon to open the browsing widget, or prev/next icons [...]

• Aug 02, 2010 Measy, a quiz-based decision engine for shopping

  Measy is an almost 1 year old shopping decision engine that relies on a quiz-based system to help shoppers identify the best product for their needs. Those quizzes are really interesting alternatives to classic faceted navigation that most shopping engines use to let users filter down products; in a way, they are similar to the [...]

• Jul 28, 2010 The new Hunch homepage: a perfect example of emotional design

  I love the new homepage for non-logged users on Hunch… For me, It’s a perfect example of emotional design, a term that I have discovered through two recent articles (“Time to delight” and “An Event Apart: Emotional Interface Design”). Quick review of this homepage: A strong tagline: “Hunch personalizes the internet” with an asterisk that [...]

• Jul 23, 2010 TheFind tweaks its sharing/personalization options

  As a follow-up of its May release that introduced Facebook login and a new “My Store” feature, TheFind has just released tweaks to its sharing and personalization options. Quick review: Sharing options via Facebook, Twitter and email are now available on every page and on every offer. The options to filter results by location or [...]

• Jul 23, 2010 Bing Shopping will become a free program

  Microsoft has officially give details about the future of Bing Shopping once its cashback will be stopped on July, 30th. With no surprise, the new Bing Shopping will become a free program, similar to Google Product Search. All the details for merchants are available on a “List your product catalogs on Bing for free” page. [...]

• Jul 22, 2010 Google Product Search will force retailers to provide unique identifiers through feeds

  In a post entitled “Improving the Product Search experience”, Google has announced it will require unique identifiers to be provided through data feed for specific categories (emphasis is mine): Over the past year, we’ve launched a number of exciting features on Google Product Search. Users can now access YouTube videos, product reviews, and other information [...]

• Jul 15, 2010 Kelkoo goes US

  From Kelkoo press release: Kelkoo.com launches in Beta in the USA as part of global brand building strategy, the 11th territory for the company At launch, Kelkoo.com will offer access to over 2 million product offers from more than 1,500 online retailers, including 19 of the US’s top 25 This is expected to rise to [...]

• Jun 14, 2010 Commodity shopping, entertainment shopping and CSEs

  On TechCrunch, an interesting article entitled “Did Amazon miss the social commerce boat?”: Few will dispute Amazon’s role as current king of the e-commerce space, but this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference raised an interesting question: Did Amazon miss the boat on social commerce? [...] All of the panelists seemed to agree that Amazon will continue [...]

• Jun 06, 2010 Bing to end its cashback program

  I’ve had a wonderful 4-days week-end in the south of France doing hot air ballooning, visiting old small villages and enjoying local food (so French, isn’t it? :) )… There has been a big CSE-related news during those few days: the announcement that the Bing Cashback program will end on July, 30 2010 through a [...]

• May 29, 2010 Which browsers does the Kelkoo audience use? (May update)

  This is a follow-up to the article I wrote in March, detailing which browsers are used in each country where Kelkoo operates. I’m publishing the new stats for May (from May 1st to May 29th), as the situation has evolved since March: At the global level, we can observe an important migration of users from [...]

• May 25, 2010 Evolutions at TheFind

  I don’t know when those changes have been released (I would say they are a few weeks old) but even if small, they give some hints regarding the directions TheFind is going towards. Facebook integration TheFind has implemented Facebook Connect as an alternative to its custom login solution (quick check on other CSEs: few of [...]

• May 17, 2010 What happens to ProntoTech?

  On Friday, I thought it could be a production issue; so I’ve checked today but the results are the same. What happens to ProntoTech, one of the vertical of Pronto? Firstly, they have reverted the new offer design introduced in July 2009 to something less radical: back to list view instead of grid, the return [...]

• May 12, 2010 How shopping engines fail to help me buy Adobe CS5

  Adobe has recently launched the 5th revision of its Creative Suite. Among all the updated products, Photoshop CS5 is really exciting for photographers; and therefore I’m currently thinking of buying it… Photoshop CS5 comes in different flavors: Standard or Extended version Windows or Macintosh Full package or upgrade from a previous version Box or download [...]

• May 07, 2010 Bing Shopping adds Twitter / Facebook sharing options

  On the Bing blog: A lot of us don’t shop alone. Going to the mall is often a social thing, so why should shopping online be any different? 75% of shoppers seek advice from others even when shopping online and now Bing shoppers can too! In the last announcement we refreshed the look of the [...]

• May 06, 2010 The new Google is likely to drive even more traffic to Product Search

  The new design for Google Search, whose several iterations have been spotted in the previous months, is now live: you can read the article on SearchEngineLand for a complete review. For the shopping side of things, it is to be noted that the user interface of Product Search has also been improved, in order to [...]

• May 03, 2010 Google introduces brand refinements

  From Google blog: Brand refinements in search results Sometimes when searching for product information on Google, you may not know some of the brand names relevant to your particular search. For example, if you’re taking on a new river-rafting hobby, it’s quite likely you don’t have a clue about kayak manufacturers just yet. So, we [...]

• Apr 22, 2010 About Facebook, shopping engines and social interactions

  This article is part of a series discussing what could be the perfect CSE for 2010. Following discussions on the core business of shopping engines (product search, product discovery, where to buy), I wanted to discuss the question of social interactions on CSEs… But after several weeks of thinking and numerous iterations of this article, [...]

• Apr 19, 2010 Review of the new GoodGuide site

  Read on the GoodGuide corporate blog: […] we are rolling out a suite of new features, new pages, and a redesign of the website to create a simpler and more personal user experience. First, we are launching new and improved product, brand, company, and category pages. We have added content that users have been requesting [...]

• Apr 14, 2010 Refreshed search result pages at Twenga

  BizRate improving its faceted navigation, Bing Shopping launching new features, Shopping.com tuning its header and search pages… These days, CSEs are busy improving their core business, and Twenga is doing the same by updating its search result pages. Quick review of the changes… Filtering The main change concerns the faceted navigation that is removed from [...]

• Apr 13, 2010 Ciao UK goes 3D!

  From PCAdvisor: Ciao, the shopping comparison site that is integrated into Microsoft’s Bing search engine, is offering web users the chance to look at products on the site in 3D. The site is using Microsoft’s Photosynth technology, which stitches several images of the same scene or item together, allowing users to view the product or [...]

• Apr 12, 2010 New version of Bing Shopping

  Bing has announced a new version of its US shopping engine (the European shopping section is still powered by Ciao!). Quick review of the changes… Product clustering on hard and soft goods While this is not in the announcement, it seems Bing has enabled product clustering on all product types, including hard and soft goods. [...]

• Apr 08, 2010 User interface improvements at BizRate US

  Following its new site launched in November’09, BizRate has recently fined-tuned the user interface of its search result pages. The redesign is not available on all categories, but I’m currently able to see it on the Digital Camera pages. Quick review below… General The new layout uses a fluid design, as opposed to the fixed [...]

• Apr 07, 2010 Could CSEs give new answers to the “where to buy” question?

  This article is part of a series discussing what could be the perfect CSE for 2010. In previous articles, I discussed the opportunity for CSEs to implement a true product search, using product clustering for both hard and soft goods; and explored how to improve browsing through those products. In this follow-up, I would like [...]

• Mar 30, 2010 Google launches a stripped-down version of Product Search in India

  On Google India blog this morning: Google’s new Shopping tool for India gathers information about products and prices automatically – the system scans millions of Indian Web pages and extracts product names, prices and images. With the help of this new technology, Google users will receive information from more than 30 thousand Indian Internet sites [...]

• Mar 29, 2010 Which browsers does the Kelkoo audience use?

  In a previous article, I explained how to better use Google Analytics to track browser usage on a site. Adjusting your browser strategy by looking at stats and trends is great, however when designing a new site, how to decide which browsers to target?  The only reference is the global stats of the browser market [...]

• Mar 22, 2010 TheFind’s new merchant feed, and what it could mean for search

  Even if I really appreciate TheFind for the innovations it brings to the CSE world, there is one area where I think its product currently lags: search relevancy. Indeed, with an index of 400M merchant offers (as claimed in press releases), noise in search result pages becomes an issue; and TheFind currently doesn’t have that [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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, [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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, [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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. [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]

• 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 [...]