eCommerce Optimization features How-To Articles about eCommerce Marketing, Learning eCommerce and Online Business including eCommerce News, Latest Trends, Platform Reviews and a Store Spotlight section where we look at, review and spotlight some of the most successful retail stores Online. Learn more...

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Comparisons - Marketplaces - Auctions - Classifieds - Deals - Social - Niche - Wikis - Reviews - Feeds - Help?

Product, Price, Brand & Seller Comparison Shopping

Considered the most popular shopping portals and product listing sites. Many merchants add items or upload their catalog to these popular comparison shopping engines right away. Getting listed is easy, all you have to do is decide where you want to begin and follow the links from this page for instruction. Some of the portals listed below are designed for niche industries or only allow certain kinds of products to be listed (ie. Etsy is for hand-made items only). Depending on what you sell, you may or may not want to include your catalog in all the shopping engines. We suggest adding your products to the FREE portals first to get an idea of how aggressive to be when launching your comparison shopping campaign.

Product Marketplaces & Comparison Shopping Marketplaces

The marketplace listing sites section features popular product and comparison shopping marketplaces for merchants to include items sold through an eCommerce enabled store. Marketplaces are typically smaller than traditional comparison shopping engines and usualy are made up of many merchants using the same types of technology or selling the same types of goods. For instance, the Shopify Marketplace is for Shopify store owners and their products only. To be inluded you must own and operate a Shopify store that has products listed for sale and opt in through an Online form. Merchants have been using niche product marketplaces for years to sell goods and to gain more exposure Online. Many of the sites have high natural listings which can drive targeted traffic through the marketplace to the merchant storefront. Some marketplaces may charge a small fee, but generally you can get included for free either by using other services or selling through one of the individual marketplace Storefronts.

Auction Shopping & Bid Based Selling

Auction sites and bid based shopping was first made popular by eBay and it's huge network. Many Online sellers have made a great living selling in these marketplaces alone. The following auction shopping sites are for merchants who wish to run and maintain a number of listing over many auctions or other inclusion program offered by the site. We recommend using auction based selling as a part of your eCommerce store rather than focus primarily on these listings. Use CSE's and auction sites to help saturate search results with your product listings. Sites like eBay show up all over natural search results and spend milions on CPC advertising, so do your homework to find out the best categories and products to list. Having many auctions running at once can get expensive so be sure to monitor your budget and consider listing only featured or special items rather than your entire catalog.

Classifieds Listing & Product Classifieds Shopping

Product classifieds are quickly becoming one of the best ways to get additional exposure for your products Online. Sites like Craigslist and Google Base have made it easy to list and sell items you wish to display as a classified advertisement. Classified listing sites are good places to get immediate attention and create buzz surrounding particular items from your product line and even possibly the entire catalog. We recommend adding a few items such as featured products or item discounts to these places so you can test the response rate and better establish what results, if any, a full classified campaign might yield. Once you have listed with CSE's and auction sites, consider adding your items to the product classifieds listed below.

Deal Finders, Bargain Hunter & Discounted Shopping

Everyone likes a bargain deal or great buy, right? Did you know there are sites out there that specifically list discount, bargain or special deal products? The sites listed below are designed to help merchants with many product price specials or the best price deals get their items infront of many potential buyers and Online shoppers looking for popular low priced products. Many merchants aren't aware of the opportunity deal finders offer. We consider these to be one of the largest money makers for merchants who sell these types of items Online. Once you have listed with traditional comparison shopping engines, consider also adding your items to deal finder and bargain hunting shopping portals and product listing sites.

Social Shopping, Product Sharing & Recommendations

A large part of selling Online and getting others to know about your product line is by word of mouth and using peer to peer networks. Having others share or recommend the products you offer is a great way to increase sales, increase brand awareness and inform others about the location of your storefront. The sites listed below are ideal for merchants who want to leverage and use social shopping networks, product sharing communities and merchant recommendation sites to help spread the word about the items they offer. Social shopping sites are quickly becoming one of the best places to include your featured items, hot specials, new products or those products that always sell well no matter what site you list them on. One you have listed with comparison shopping sites and deal finders, consider adding your products or store items to these social shopping communities and product recommendation sites.

Niche Product Portals & Specialty Shopping Engines

Over the past 5 years we have seen many more niche selling markets appear within the ecommerce space. With the ever growing product competition Online and new or innovative marketing ideas it is more important than ever to sell within a certain niche, if possible and profitable. Niche product portals and specialty shopping engines are meant to list products from merchants who fall within and indivudual selling niche such as only shoes, only clothing, only electronics and even perscription drugs. Merchants who fal within the different selling niches offered through specialty shopping engines should certainly list their items in as many of the relevant engines as possible for the most exposure and extremely targeted traffic. Many of the niche or specialty sites rank high within natural search engines which can also increase exposure for a merchant who sells within a certain niche. It is recommended to submit to all the general products sites and then check the specialty niches to see if there's a fit for your products.

Shopping Wikis, Buyers Reporting & Shopping Guides

The sudden and unexpected success of wiki sites like Wikipedia has helped create a whole new way for users to generate their own content, edit pages they know about and include information in a place others are interested in finding more about a particular topic. Now there are several niche wiki's that are designed to provide information about a particular topic rather than a general information site relating to millions of specific topics. Below we have listed a few shopping wikis for merchants to list in and contribute to. Wikis are a great place to share information and get additional exposure for your store and brand name. If you have an interest in contributing to wikis or feel that it will benefit you to be listed within them, you should consider adding items and accompanying buyers guides to these wikis.

Consumer Reviews, Product Ratings & Consumer Guides

Getting product reviews for the items you sell can sometimes be a challenging task and requires a lot of planning, a review platform and many customers willing to share their opinions and views about your product line. These days it's getting much easier for merchants to get listed in places that already have a review platform setup and thousands of willing participants to fill in detailed rating and reviews for your items sold Onine. The following sites are for merchants who wish to get listed on consumer review sites and gain additional exposure for the products they sell and the brand they are promoting. Many of the sites listed below are affiliated with the top comparison shopping engines, so you may already be listed in some places if you have added your product to the popular CSE's. Consider adding products to the rest of the rating and review sites for ore exposure and feedback about the products you sell.

Data Feed Generation, Submission, Tracking & Management Firms

The complex world of data feed generation, submission, optimization, tracking and management can be overwheling and may require an abundance of time to manage properly. With the ever growing number of comparison shopping engines and the many varieties of data feed attributes within multiple channel marketing, it can be difficult for merchants with limited time or no desire to properly launch and manage data feed campaigns. Certain companies refered to as data feed management firms specilize in setting up, distributing or uploading, optimizing, refining, tracking and reporting all the neccessary feed data. Thousands of merchants have used data feed managers to aid in their mission to generate traffic and sales from multiple comparison shopping channels. Many of the companies charge a reaccuring monthly fee so it is best to use them only if you plan to spend a decent amount of your budget on several of the different shopping engines. Many of the advanced tracking and reporting tools, used in conjuncture with the tools the engines themselves provide, can also help to refine or optimize how feeds perform and helps to increase overall campaign performance on the individual engines.

Need Help Listing Products & Choosing Marketplaces?

Sorting through the various places to add your products can sometimes be an exhaustive task requiring much spare time and planning. We have done our best to list as many of the most popular comparison shopping engines, deal finders, social shopping networks, shopping wikis and consumer review sites as we possibly could. If you are having trouble getting your items included in one or more of the shopping portals or product listing sites we may be able to assist you in getting the answers you need. If you are looking to get listed within JUST the popular or most used shopping portals you may find the data feed solutions are the best way to go. We recommend adding your items to as many of the places listed on this page as possible for the most exposure, the most traffic and the best chance of early success. Keep in mind, not all stores or products will fit well within each and every shopping portal, so find the ones that best describe the items you sell and go from there.

Here are some great help articles with more information:

• New Guide Released: Comparison Shopping Engines & Shopping Portals
• Product Price Comparisons, Bargain Deals & Social Shopping: How They Differ
• Getting The Most Out Of Shopping Engines & Data Feeds

If you have any questions, we are eager to help, for FREE. Simply contact us for advice.

Shopping Portal Feedback, Errors & Updates

If you find any information on this page outdated or in need of an update, please get in touch so we can make the necessary changes to this guide. If you are an owner or founder of one of the shopping portals listed on this page and would like information changed, tweaked or updated we are eager to hear your thoughts, so drop us a message and tell us how we can better describe what you offer. If you know of a site or portal that should be listed on this page that is currently NOT listed, we would be happy to consider adding it.

If you find misspellings or typos, try to ignore them, but let us know so we can fix those too!