Back in September 07′ we covered Lemonade’s launch, and business model in detail so I won’t be going into too much about the company here as with some of our other comparison shopping interviews. I have enjoyed watching the growth of Lemonade’s application, brand and user base. They seem to have found a perfect fit in between the eCommerce and affiliate spaces.

Basically, Lemonade offers merchants or entrepreneurs the ability to create and publish their own personal “lemonade stand” packed with products or items from the Internet’s top online retailers. Merchants can pick and choose from over 2 million products from roughly 200,000 top eCommerce sellers including retails such as Macy’s, Nordstrom, Zappos and TigerDirect.

Users can then place their personal lemonade stand widget in a number of places including Blogger, Vox, Facebook, Yahoo! 360 and more. Once the user has created their stand and has the products they wish to recommend loaded, they have the opportunity to earn revenue each time a shopper clicks through to the retailer’s page to buy an item. Commissions range from 5 to 15 percent of the sale price to anyone who delivers a paying customer. Certain online retailers will pay up to $10 for each new customer, while others may just pay Lemonade merchants each time a visitor clicks on a link to see recommended products.

Add your favorite stuff to a lemonade stand and put it on your personal profile, website, blog, wherever. It’s free and when someone purchases from your stand you get paid.

Lemonade Marketplace:

Lemonade’s merchant marketplace is a collection of individual stands/widgets that have been created using Lemonade’s application. Shoppers are able to browse different stands including best performing, most viewed and top rated or featured stands. Shoppers are also able to view stands by creation date (new stands) and they can even rate or review the stands they like the most.

Tom Zawacki, CEO, Answers 10 Questions About Lemonade Marketplace:

Roughly how many merchants are included within Lemonade?

There are more than 200 retailer partners of Lemonade, including Apple, Sony, Estee Lauder, The Gap, Lands’ End, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Old Navy and Wal-Mart.

Roughly how many products are included within Lemonade?

Right now we have a selection of over 2 million products from some of the best companies in the world. We have access to over ten million products and brands, and we will continue to add to Lemonade based on our users requests.

Roughly how many individuals currently work on Lemonade support and coding teams?

Lemonade currently has 3 full-time employees with a team of up to 15 contract resources.

What other places across the Internet, if any, are merchants and products included?

Lemonade enables individuals to make money by setting up a digital lemonade stand, distributing it on their social networking profile, blog or personal website, effectively starting their own e-business. Users currently have set up Lemonade Stands on Facebook, MySpace, AOL People Connect, Yahoo! 360, Blogger, SixApart, and many others.

Lemonade Inc. will also feature every Lemonade Stand in the Lemonade Marketplace section.

What, in your opinion, are the highlight features Lemonade offers it’s users?

• In under 5 minutes, a user can set up a personalize e-business, their Lemonade Stand
• Users add personal reviews and recommendations of the brands/products they promote in their stand
• Forrester reports that word of mouth recommendations are the #1 driver of online purchases
• The ability to earn extra money by referring products & services to shoppers, and via online advertising on their stand
• The ability to learn about starting and running a business
• The ability to add the Lemonade stand to social networking profiles, blogs or individual websites
• The opportunity to shop from the Lemonade Community – to connect with people like them who are finding great deals or the best brands/products for a particular need

What, in your opinion are the highlight features Lemonade offers merchants?

There are currently approximately 150 million individuals who have set up a social networking profile, blog or personal website. According to Internet research company comScore, these social networking websites and blogs receive an estimated 170 million unique visitors per month. Partnership with Lemonade.com enables companies to extend their brand presence, e-commerce footprint and loyalty programs onto the personal pages of these individual authors.

Lemonade’s Enterprise Solution allows merchants to private label the platform to offer the Lemonade experience within their own branded context. The Lemonade Enterprise Solution enables merchants to activate their most loyal brand advocates as an extension of their sales staff (e.g., the Avon Lady, Tupperware Parties, etc.)

Are new features being added and updated often? How often would you say?

We launched in October 2007. An upgrade of the entire experience, Lemonade 2.0, will be live in September 2008. We have given our users a full-page e-commerce experience for when they set up a stand, enhanced our search engine and shopping experience, and upgraded the functionality of our widget. We continue to add new retailers and products every month. We expect to release new features every 4 months.

How does Lemonade plan to stay competitive with sites like Amazon and eBay marketplaces?

Amazon and eBay are not competitors, in fact they are partners. We have a completed contract with Amazon to offer their products in Lemonade Stands, and we hope to work with eBay in 2009 in the same way. In addition, we are enabling individuals to start-up their own e-business by recommending products/brands/services from leading merchants vs. eBay which enables individuals to sell their own things in an auction environment. We think we will have a very strong relationship with both Amazon and eBay.

Where do you see Lemonade in the next 3-5 years?

In 2007, eCommerce in the U.S. is a $150 billion marketplace. U.S. Online advertising is a $20 billion marketplace – That is $170 billion today – Forrester projects these numbers to grow to almost $350 billion in 5 years. Today, 0% of eCommerce and Online Advertising in the U.S. is driven from the Social Economy. We believe that in 5 years at least 10% of U.S. eCommerce and Online Advertising will be driven by the Social Economy, which is a $35 billion marketplace. Lemonade Inc. is in position to be a leader in the Social Economy, and if we can capture just 1% of this new marketplace we will be a $350 million company.

In addition, Lemonade Inc. will expand internationally over the next 2 years. We will look at very large online populations with high growth rates such as China, the greater Asia Pacific Region, India and South America.

What Online product marketplaces, other than Lemonade, do you personally use to shop from?

iTunes, Amazon, Sephora (for my wife), eLuxury.com (for my wife), EastBay Sports (for my baseball team), Netflix

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Tom: I really appreciate the detailed thought and attention that you were able to provide in the QandA answers, it sounds like some exciting things are happening on the Lemonade front. It’s great to see you guys nearly through your first year! I love being able to cover a launch and come back to see where the company is after a bit of time in the space, it’s been interesting and fun watching your brand and application grow. I hope you are able to find as much success in the international arena as you’ve seen here in the U.S. I can’t wait to see Lemonade 2.0 in September!! Please consider sending me an update when you’re ready to launch, I’d be happy to cover it on the blog. Thanks again Tom (and all Lemonade.com staff) for providing such a cool concept application and for the support you’ve shown the online selling industry.

To our readers: I certainly hope you’ve all enjoyed this latest comparison shopping engine (CSE) QandA with Tom Zawacki from Lemonade.com as much as I have. As always we have several more interviews out there and in the works for the future, so check back regularly. If you’re lazy and want us to deliver the content to you, simply grab our feed or subscribe to email updates and we’ll send the good stuff to you directly. You may also wish to read back in our archives at some of the ecommerce interviews that have already been published.

Lemonade Marketplace is Featured as one of the shopping marketplaces on our Product Listing Guide!

Shopping.com is an eBay company as of August 2005 and is considered to be one of the original pioneers of comparison shopping and online product search. Since launching, Shopping.com has grown beyond expectations and continues to remain among the fastest growing, most visited eCommerce shopping engines available today. Shopping.com offers services for both consumers and merchants including powerful search tools, technology and unbiased reviews for millions of products, thousands of brands and several top online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

Shopping.com has expanded their operations globally and are now able to offer their innovative shopping services and tools in several different languages and countries worldwide including the U.K., Germany, France, Australia, Ireland and more to come.

Shopping.com’s mission is to help consumers anywhere use the power of information to easily find, compare and buy anything online – in less time and for the best price!

Shopping.com’s What’s In Store Blog:

• Official Shopping.com Blog

The Shopping.com What’s In Store Blog is the place for all things Shopping.com. Merchants and consumers will find information and insights related to online shopping, buying and review trends, merchant seller tips, favorite staff product picks or finds and even information from industry professionals, experts and other blog contributors. Be sure to drop by the official Shopping.com blog, there’s sure to be something there for everyone whether you’re a merchant or shopper.

Shopping.com’s WorkShop:

• Shopping.com WorkShop

I thought this was an interesting concept and something I hadn’t really seen offered by a comparison shopping engine. It’s called the Shopping.com WorkShop. Basically, it’s a special section on their website where Shopping.com features some of their innovative projects, new shopping tools or technology and new site features that they wish to test and receive feedback about.

The WorkShop is pretty bare right now so don’t expect much today, but I for one will be keeping the link in a handy place so that I can revisit it on occasion and provide feedback if I have any.

Linda Snow, Marketing Director, Answers 10 Questions About Shopping.com:

Roughly how many merchants are included within Shopping.com?

5,000 active U.S. merchants.

Roughly how many products are included within Shopping.com?

More than 16,000 brands, 340 categories and Shopping.com includes 65% of the Internet’s top 100 retailers.

Roughly how many individuals currently work on Shopping.com support and coding teams?

We do not disclose the number of employees at Shopping.com.

What other places across the Internet, if any, are merchants and products included?

By using Shopping.com’s powerful API program, which allows third-party access to our highly structured and comprehensive product catalog, Shopping.com powers the shopping experience for hundreds of Web sites including Answers.com, DigitalAdvisor, HowStuffWorks.com, Surprise.com and Ziff Davis’ PCMag.com. Other partners include MySimon, ProductWiki, Reseller Ratings and Wize.com.

Our API users can customize and reconfigure the Shopping.com catalog and search tools as needed, tailoring them to their preference and extending the reach of the platform.

What, in your opinion, are the highlight features Shopping.com offers it’s users?

We aim for a site that is designed for ease of use and simple navigation. We’ve constructed our site with special features including the What’s Hot, Shop by Brand and Top 5 sections. Additionally, we launched a gift cards page during the 2007 holiday season; within the category, users can easily sort and shop for cards from a variety of vendors – all in one place. All of these features make it easy for consumers to shop for great deals.

What, in your opinion are the highlight features Shopping.com offers merchants?

In Shopping.com’s recent eCommerce Pulse Index survey, we found that 45 percent of our merchants are adjusting their sales and/or marketing strategy because of the stagnant economy. Our most recent offerings for merchants are designed to help them generate additional revenue on Shopping.com and increase conversion to sale. This includes an innovative Value Based Pricing model, which automatically adjusts the charges per click to merchants based on the publisher’s overall traffic performance. Also, Product Performance Reporting helps merchants quickly and easily identify important sales data to optimize and improve their product feeds and overall campaign. Additionally, a key part of the Shopping.com experience is the Distributed Commerce API that allows merchants to recreate a comparison shopping experience on their own site to monetize more traffic and improve buyer experience.

Are new features being added and updated often? How often would you say?

We constantly solicit feedback from our merchants to determine what changes need to be made in order to maintain the best experience on Shopping.com.

How does Shopping.com plan to stay competitive with sites like Amazon and eBay marketplaces?

Shopping.com is an eBay company under the marketplaces umbrella. The synergies between eBay and Shopping.com provide consumers with unique shopping experiences as well as provide a mechanism by which merchants can reach their target audiences. Regarding search engines, our Distributed Commerce model provides flexibility to how merchants reach their customers.

Where do you see Shopping.com in the next 3-5 years?

Our focus has always been and will continue to be delivering the best shopping experience.

What Online product marketplaces, other than Shopping.com, do you personally use to shop from?

Actually, with the thousands of merchants and brands on Shopping.com I always find what I am looking for.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Linda: This is fantastic Linda. I greatly appreciate the time you took from your busy schedule to take part in our little QandA about Shopping.com. I have always liked your company’s vision and CSE service, so it’s great to finally have caught up with you all. By the looks of things you’ve been busy, I love the concept of the WorkShop beta testing and feedback section, that’s very creative and helps to engage your users/merchants which is always great in my opinion, so bravo to you and your team for that idea. I also like the fact that you conduct surveys regularly so that you are always able to improve your service and meet the expectations and demand of your users, that is really important these days. Thanks again for being available and for offering such quality answers to our CSE questions, I look forward to seeing your continued growth within the industry, keep up the good work.

To our readers: I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading our most recent comparison shopping engine (CSE) QandA with Linda Snow from Shopping.com. As always we have several more interviews out there and in the works for the future, so check back regularly or grab our feed or email updates and we’ll send the good stuff to you directly. You may also wish to read back in our archives at some of the ecommerce interviews that have already been published.

Shopping.com is Featured as one of the comparison shopping engines on our Product Listing Guide!

GoDataFeed specializes in the automated delivery of product data feeds to over 40 major comparison shopping engines for merchants interested in saving time and effectively sending, optimizing and analyzing their feed content. GoDataFeed works together with merchant sellers, search engine marketing and optimization firms, hosting companies and a variety of other service providers, many of which are attracted to GoDataFeed’s affordable, efficient model designed to increase visitors and product/brand reach within the individual shopping channels.

In addition to the data feed automation, optimization and tracking processes, GoDataFeed truly cares about their clients success and always aims to exceed their expectations by offering the support and resources needed to meet the demands of their individual client needs.

GoDataFeed Comparison Shopping Solutions Overview:

• Promote products on more than 40 comparison shopping sites & affiliate networks
• Enhance product placement with built-in shopping engine categorization and validation
• Customize feed campaigns for sale, holiday, free-shipping, brand-name promotions and more

Data Feed Automation

• Easy one-time setup process
• Feed fresh product data
• Full integration with Yahoo! Store, ShopSite and Volusion 5.0

Data Feed Optimization

• Accurate product placement
• Robust field and category mapping
• Built-in categorizations and validation for all shopping engines

Data Feed Tracking

• Engine and product-level performance
• Real time data on clicks, conversions and revenue
• Determine your best products and shopping channels

GoDataFeed Features:

• Automate your data imports via FTP or instantly import your fully-integrated ShopSite, Volusion 5.0 or Yahoo! Stores
• Ensure your product data is always fresh with nightly FTP updates
• Submit your feeds automatically- daily, weekly or monthly
• Enhance product placement with robust category & filter rules that let you customize feeds and merchandise products where customers expect to find them
• Validate feeds against each shopping engine’s requirements to ensure your product data is accurate and complete
• Customize feed campaigns by adding or modifying values to your feed- like adding tracking tags to your URLs or creating targeted promotional initiatives for sale items, free-shipping, brand name and more
• Real-Time feedback on your clicks, orders and revenue
• Monitor your best performing engines and products
• Determine the best shopping sites for your store

GoDataFeed $.99 Trial:

GoDataFeed offers a 30 day trial of their professional comparison shopping engine solutions. The cost for the trial is only $.99. That’s right, only 99 cents to try GoDataFeed for a whole month. Visit the GoDataFeed trial page and fill out the brief form to sign-up for your $.99 thirty day trial offer.

GoDataFeed Pricing:

All GoDataFeed plans include: Two FREE Feed Setups, FREE Analytics Module & FREE Support

• Starter – 3 Feeds, 5,000 Products, $50/month
• Self-Managed – Unlimited Feeds, 5, 000 Products, $75/month
• Managed – Unlimited Feeds, 5,000 Products, $250/month

* Note: Each plan charges $5.00 extra per each additional 1,000 products

GoDataFeed Blog:

GoDataFeed also has a blog running where anyone can go to get the latest CSE and GDF news along with tips and resources from the experts at GoDataFeed. Simply visit their main page and look for the link to their blog in the top right corner.

• Official GoDataFeed Blog

To get an idea of the type of content to expect, be sure to read the latest post: Maximizing Comparison Shopping Site Marketing. It’s a great article full of tips to help merchants or pros effectively use CSE strategies. It’s a must read for anyone in the current CSE space.

Lin Grosman, Marketing/Integration, Answers 10 Questions About GoDataFeed:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

GoDataFeed’s software engineers and marketing specialists have developed ecommerce solutions for online businesses since 2000. Responding to the popularity of comparison shopping channels, GoDataFeed’s team combined its collective knowledge of best ecommerce and shopping channel marketing practices to create a single, user-friendly application to manage the product feed process.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

‘All of the above’ GoDataFeed data feed management service automates, optimizes and analyzes product data feeds to more than 40 comparison engines and affiliate networks:

• Automation: The software simplifies and automates the data feed management process through FTP updates as well as automatic integration for Yahoo! Stores, ShopSite, Volusion (5.0) stores, and AmeriCommerce.
• Optimization: Merchants can optimize their product feeds through built-in categorization and feed validation tools that help them make their product data more accurate and complete.
• Analytics: GoDataFeed’s analytics module helps merchants track product-level and engine performance, which helps determine best-performing shopping channels for their store.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

GoDataFeed supports more than 40 comparison shopping sites and affiliate networks including:

Amazon.com, Become.com, BuyersEdge, Ciao.com, FindGift.com, Gifts.com, Like.com, NexTag.com, Oodle.com, MyCoupons.com, PriceComparison.com, PriceforSure.com, PriceGrabber.com, PriceLeap.com, PriceRunner.com, PriceWatch.com, Pronto.com, Shop.com, Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, Smarter.com, Sortprice.com, Streetprices.com, Yahoo Shopping, Google Product Search, MSN Live Product, TheFind.com, Dealio, Share-A-Sale, Commission Junction and Performics.

We also provide custom feeds for merchants who submit to specialty sites, such as wine specialty sites, gourmet and affiliate sites, etc.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We cater to retail clients, hosting firms companies and search engine optimization and search engine marketing firms. Some of our clients include: StuffedAnimals.com, Puppet.com, CoffeeCakes.com, FootwearEtc.com, AffiliateTraction, Lexiconn Internet Services, WebDex Media Group.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Data feed management firms should give merchants the right tools to make their product information as accurate and complete as possible prior to submission to shopping engines, tools like feed validation and built-in categorization and customization options.

Data feed management firms should inform and educate merchants — through a transparent process– about the steps involved in optimizing and submitting their products to multiple shopping sites, acting as merchant advocates, and keeping them abreast of industry developments.

Shopping feed software should:

• Automate the data feed management process
• Optimize product information for each individual engine
• Monitor shopping site and product performance

Data feed management firms should provide responsive, unlimited support — GoDataFeed provides unparalleled turnaround time with support requests, live help with feed setups and live chat — all in an effort to simplify the feed management process, get their stores up and running and save merchants time and resources.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

The biggest mistake merchants can make is to look for “set it and forget it” or cookie-cutter solutions—merchants should be involved in the process of preparing their product data, as they know their product information best, and monitor their performance on the shopping sites.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

Each shopping site has its own data feed template, system and resources. We think the most commonly overlooked aspect–which can have the biggest impact– is merchants not tailoring feed campaigns to each shopping site and taking advantage of each shopping sites’ resources—i.e. account manager assistance, shopping site user review programs and shopping site optimization tips.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

The comparison shopping world is definitely becoming more social as shoppers are not only buying, but researching products and looking for ratings, reviews and user experiences. In addition, we think that more shopping sites will adopt a Cost-per-Action model—which is popular with many merchants.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Our goal is promote a “Power to the Merchant” movement that empowers merchants and SEO firms to understand and take control of their data feed management to unlimited engines—at an affordable rate. We have just launched GoDataFeed’s v2.0—which has an extremely user-friendly interface and appeals to many users, making it easy to customize feed campaigns to more than 40 shopping sites. We aim to grow our business by helping merchants grow theirs.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

It is impossible to generalize on the best performing comparison shopping engine, because each store and industry are different and perform differently on the shopping sites—however, the most popular shopping sites we currently support are Google Base, Shopzilla, Yahoo! Shopping, PriceGrabber and Jellyfish—now known as CashBack.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Lin: Wow Lin, thanks so much for taking the time and effort to participate in our QandA style interview about GoDataFeed. I really appreciate all the thought and information that went into your responses, well done. I love the fact that you are all about empowering the merchant for success, it can be easily overlooked in this fast paced industry. My favorite part, that is so true, is about the commonly overlooked aspects. You hit the nail on the head by stating, “merchants not tailoring feed campaigns to each shopping site and taking advantage of each shopping sites’ resources.” I can’t count the times I’ve worked with businesses who fail to utilize ALL their resources. The rating and reviews are the biggest, as you said. Optimization of feeds is also a big one. Thanks again Lin. I hope you continue to drop by. Please don’t hesitate to send us updates about your service so we can all stay informed about the progress GoDataFeed is making!!

To our readers: Well, that pretty much wraps up our latest data feed company interview. I hope you all enjoyed our time with Lin Grosman from GoDataFeed. It always amazes me to see how companies such as this are revolutionizing the CSE industry. I hope it was as informative for all of you as it was for me. If you liked this article and interview, be sure and subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send newly published articles directly to you. If you just can’t wait for more like this, and haven’t already, you may also want to check out some of our past ecommerce interviews.

GoDataFeed is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

FeedPerfect, a Solid Cactus company, offers professional comparison shopping engine and data feed solutions to eCommerce sellers interested in getting their product information imported, optimized and published within popular shopping portals and destinations. FeedPerfect’s data feed solutions are designed with ease of use and efficiency in mind. Merchants who use FeedPerfect are able to utilize all of the categorization methods and data requirements for each CSE directly from the merchant application dashboard. Once store products are imported into the app., a variety of tools can be used to mass categorize product groups, pre-validate product data and automatically submit products directly into each supported shopping engine.

In addition, FeedPerfect takes the process a step further by providing useful tools to help merchants optimize their individual data feeds, track product performance and analyze product and engine statistics, making it much easier to adjust data or make changes to improve performance.

FeedPerfect Comparison Shopping Solutions Overview:

• Import – FeedPerfect’s global database will give you the tools to mass categorize groups of products saving you A LOT of time.
• Publish – FeedPerfect will automatically submit products on the schedule you determine to ensure your products’ data remains up-to-date.
• Analyze – FeedPerfect’s analytics provides merchants with powerful decision making tools and the ability to act on these decisions right inside of the application.
• Optimize – FeedPerfect allows you to review product performance across multiple channels and optimize each feed for maximum performance.

FeedPerfect Benefits:

• Completely Web-based Application
• Detailed Analytics Tools
• Easy To Use, Comes Supported
• Feature Rich Interface
• Validation And Categorization
• 17 Major CSE’s Supported

Try FeedPerfect FREE For 30 Days:

FeedPerfect offers a complimentary 30 day trial of their professional comparison shopping engine solutions. Visit the FeedPerfect homepage and fill out the brief form on the right to sign-up for your FREE 30 day trial of their popular data feed application.

FeedPerfect Pricing:

• Starter – 1 Store, 1,000 Products, 3 Engines, $89/month
• Professional – 1 Store, 20,000 Products, All Engines, $179/month
• Enterprise – 4 Stores, 100,000 Products, All Engines, $279/month

About Solid Cactus:

Solid Cactus, a total e-commerce solutions provider, has designed or redesigned more than 2,500 e-commerce sites using the Yahoo! Store platform. Our team of world-class designers and experienced programmers know what makes e-commerce sites successful and strive for excellence in each project we undertake.

Kurt Illian, Solid Cactus, Answers 10 Questions About FeedPerfect:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

After working with online merchants everyday since 2001, we saw the need for a product to help them manage their feeds early on. We originally had a simple feed service that allowed merchants to send their products to each of the engines from one centralized place. As time went on we realized our customers were blindly sending feeds to the engines without watching their spend or optimizing their data feeds accordingly. Basically we saw a lot of customers wasting money. We decided to meet this need by introducing FeedPerfect in early 2007.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

FeedPerfect provides one centralized location to manage products available to be sent to the Comparison Shopping Engines. We then provide a way for the merchant to select which engine they would like to advertise in, as well as a walk-through simplified setup wizard. Not only will you find the ability to select which products you would like to advertise but also a comprehensive list of the different categories available within the engine. Once the feed has been sent out to the engine, FeedPerfect provides analytics to track the conversion down to the product level allowing the merchant to take action (change or remove that product from a feed) from one interface without having to learn each engine’s unique admin.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

• Google Product Search
• Price Grabber
• Shopping.com
• Shopzilla
• Yahoo! Shopping
• MySimon
• NexTag
• Smarter
• PriceLeap
• PriceSaving
• Jellyfish
• Become.com
• StreetPrices.com
• Live.com
• SortPrice
• Pronto.com
• Amazon Product Ads

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We have a large variety of customers ranging from small “Mom and Pop” companies with small advertising budgets who are only advertising in a few engines, to large e-commerce businesses with a dedicated marketing manager watching the spend on a daily basis. FeedPerfect also caters to agencies with multiple accounts/stores by making it possible to manage their customers from one easy-to-use interface.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Time and money. We’ve seen too many merchants simply set up their feeds and “walk away.” Your CSE advertising is an important part of your business. If you are not going to take the time to manage it properly, you should look for a solution that can help. Find a solution that will save you time through the automation of data feeds, and money by telling you where your money is being spent. If that is still too much for you, consider using a firm to manage your CSE feeds for you.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

I have found some merchants simply send their products to the engine and never take time to look at the data. Many people send their products to Google Product Search but are not aware of which items are performing well. In fact, many of them do not even have access to such valuable statistics. This is a great way to test new product offerings in the world of Comparison Shopping Engines, and at the same time provide valuable statistics to use across other advertising channels.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

People often overlook how much data they are providing a CSE. Conventional wisdom says the more a customer is informed (by product information), the easier the sale. The CSEs have required fields, but not many people look beyond those fields and populate the fields that are optional. Consider updating your feeds to include as much information as possible.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

Technology changes everyday so the possibilities are endless. With social media being so new I can see more CSE adding in social components into their engines allowing shoppers to communicate with each other. One trend that we have noticed is larger e-commerce stores are starting to compete in CSEs which is making it harder for smaller merchants to compete.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

We continue to add more CSE’s into FeedPerfect. More importantly, however, we are adding new tools that will make it easier to manage your data feeds and see which products are producing the best results, and which items are not producing desirable results for your bottom line.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

Due to the various demographics that each merchant targets, it varies across each store. However, one feed that continues to not only have the best ROI (since it’s free), but drives traffic and sales, is Google Product Search. The sales many of our merchants get from Google Product Search compare to other CSE’s that you are paying for. Outside of Google Product Search, our merchants have been able to find success within all of the engines we support, depending on the merchants target demographic.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Kurt: I want to personally express my thanks for your participation in the QandA Kurt. I appreciate the time, thought and effort that went into your answers, such detailed responses! I love the fact that you’ve put so much emphasis on technology and tools to make everything so simple and easy. You hit the nail on the head by stating, “some merchants simply send their products to the engine and never take time to look at the data.” I find this to be true in nearly one in five people I discuss current CSE strategy with. Analyzing performance and drilling content down to the product level is so overlooked it’s not even funny. Glad you brought it up and reinforced that it is NOT OK! Again, thank you for taking the time to participate. Love what you’re doing with FeedPerfect and at Solid Cactus, it seems like you’ve got a quality team. Keep up the good work.

To our readers: It’s great to get this kind of information directly from the professionals, isn’t it? I hope you all enjoyed this, and past interviews, as much as I have. We’re almost out of data feed providers to interview, so it won’t be long now before we begin some new QandA series’ and expand on some we’ve already begun conducting. If you liked this structure and the interview content, be sure you subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send newly published articles directly to you.

FeedPerfect is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

ShopWiki is one of the most creative, intuitive concepts I have ever seen spun from the comparison shopping engine business model. Their crawler based CSE is smart, powerful and capable of including products from nearly every merchant seller online (given the site is crawler friendly). ShopWiki is also currently the most recognized shopping engine in existence that utilizes the power of user generated content through their built-in wiki platform.

ShopWiki was originally founded by two ex-DoubleClick execs, Kevin Ryan and Dwight Merriman, and Eliot Horowitz in 2005. Since launch, ShopWiki has continued on their goal to find and index every possible offer by a merchant that can be purchased online. ShopWiki is an advanced shopping crawler, product engine, wiki or gift guide, social community and much more. They currently even offer user submitted shopping video content and product reviews.

ShopWiki is the ultimate shopping search engine, combining powerful Web-crawling technology with wiki buying and gift guides. ShopWiki doesn’t sell any products and doesn’t charge retailers to include their products in your search results.

ShopWiki’s Overlooked Blog:

• Official ShopWiki Blog

The ShopWiki Overlooked Blog gives the people behind the ShopWiki concept a new place where they can share daily product finds, sites and other unusual offers from around the Web with users. Anyone interested in finding new creative products and merchant shops from industry professionals who know their stuff should certainly save and tune in to the Overlooked Blog by ShopWiki.

ShopWiki Mobile Search:

• Official ShopWiki Mobile

ShopWiki also offers a mobile version of their comparison shopping search. As far as I know, they were one of the first CSE’s to release a mobile version of their product shopping engine and have certainly gained many more users by offering their technology and tools through mobile devices. Now shoppers can find and buy their favorite products “on the go” with ShopWiki’s official mobile shopping site.

James Keating Answers 10 Questions About ShopWiki:

Roughly how many merchants are included within ShopWiki?

ShopWiki.com includes products from over 200,000 merchants in the US, plus another 50,0000 in the international markets we’re entering, such as the UK (ShopWiki.co.uk), Australia (ShopWiki.com.au), and even France (ShopWiki.fr).

ShopWiki.com crawls ecommerce stores to actively pull in products from any store we find on the Internet. This is very different than a typical shopping comparison engine which waits for a merchant to send them a data feed. We will present products from merchants even if they don’t opt in for premier placement, which makes it the most comprehensive shopping search engine on the web.

Roughly how many products are included within ShopWiki?

There are over 250 million offers in ShopWiki.com!

Roughly how many individuals currently work on ShopWiki support and coding teams?

There are 7 people writing code at ShopWiki.com, and since we use crawlers, there is minimal need for support, with two people available for merchants to work with. The automation and self service we designed in from the beginning makes it possible to run ShopWiki.com with a modest size team. As we expand into more countries, we will bring on staff with native language skills for those markets. We even manage to squeeze in some fun with our blog (blog.shopwiki.com) to comment on the wonderful diversity of product ideas and ponder their potential usage.

What other places across the Internet, if any, are merchants and products included?

We have done co-branded shopping solutions for MensHealth, and have been speaking with several other sites about working together. As those distribution deals are launched, we will announce them.

What, in your opinion, are the highlight features ShopWiki offers it’s users?

The completeness of shopping search is ShopWiki.com’s core strength. Our shopping search engine will find anything and everything for sale on the Internet. We also make sifting through all of those options a breeze by using natural language in our search, such as “burnt orange strapless dress for under $100″.

What, in your opinion are the highlight features ShopWiki offers merchants?

Ease of participation: We’re probably already crawling your site, so include us in your CPA affiliate program, and we will do all the rest to give you preferred placement in the search results.

Are new features being added and updated often? How often would you say?

Every week we make improvements to the site and the infrastructure, some major, some minor. All updates are aimed at improving our ability to find stores with new features, better layouts for shoppers, etc. to make it easier for visitors to find the products at the stores they know and discover stores they didn’t know. We also continuously improve the crawling technology to find more stores and more products.

How does ShopWiki plan to stay competitive with sites like Amazon and eBay marketplaces?

Due to the nature of our crawling technology, we can easily foresee having greater selection than Amazon, and become the de-facto standard to start shopping.

Where do you see ShopWiki in the next 3-5 years?

ShopWiki.com has been designed from the ground up to roll out to just any country in the world, especially smaller countries that would have a hard time supporting a traditional shopping comparison engine relying on data feeds. You’ll see our presence in the US increase, as well as establish a global presence. Any country with even a modest ecommerce market is prime for ShopWiki.com to help shoppers and merchants come together.

What Online product marketplaces, other than ShopWiki, do you personally use to shop from?

Of course, Amazon is a favorite of mine, and I enjoy reading shopper’s opinions on stores at Reseller Ratings before I try a new store. Epinions has been a treasure trove of product information, to which I’ve even contributed.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To James: I would like to personally express my thanks for your participation in this interview style QandA, despite your demanding schedule and responsibilities. Myself and our readers sure appreciate the detailed thought and effort you have put into each of your answers, allowing for all of us to get to know your CSE a bit better. I like the fact that you have started with your goal and stuck to it over the years by building up your crawler technology to the point it’s at now. I love the crawler approach as opposed to the “submission of data” model. It’s great that merchants can get products included within ShopWiki without paying or going through the trouble of generating and submitting a data feed. Another wise move, in my opinion, has been your recent jump into the international shopping-scape. Hopefully that continues to help you grow beyond expectations!! Thanks again James, and please don’t hesitiate to send us any feature releases, updates or announcements in the future.

To our readers: I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading our most recent comparison shopping engine (CSE) QandA with James from ShopWiki.com. I have several more interviews in the works with other comparison engines, data feed companies and top 100 retailers in the future. You may also wish to read back in the archives at some of the ecommerce interviews we have already conducted.

ShopWiki is Featured as one of the comparison shopping wikis on our Product Listing Guide!

Awhile back we kicked off a new interview series with top comparison shopping engine and data feed management companies in an effort to introduce our readers to some of the industry players and to inform merchants about the types of services offered by the different providers. This interview is roughly the fourth CSE services one we’ve conducted and I am happy to report that it appears as though we’ve got a few more in store due to be released within the month.

CPC Strategy is a provider of comparison shopping engine and data feed marketing services for merchants interested in leveraging the power of online shopping engines in an effort to increase shopper, buyer and brand awareness in the world of online retail. CPC Strategy’s solution is meant to take an individual approach to CSE selling taking into consideration that different sellers may have separate goals when it comes to marketing through comparison shopping.

CPC Strategy Comparison Shopping Solution Overview:

CPC Strategy understands that each merchant is different and has unique goals for their Comparison Shopping Campaigns. We strive to work with each of our clients individually to ensure that we fully understand and meet your expectations.

A few of the data feed services offered by CPC Strategy include adding custom product attributes, optimizing individual data feeds, automation of data feed submission, proper feed categorization and even micro-management of each campaign. The overall goal of CPC Strategy is to boost merchant ROI by lowering costs associated with CSE marketing and by increasing shopper conversion rates.

CPC Strategy Data Feed Service Details:

Data Feed Optimization

CPC Strategy will create, optimize, and manage data feeds in an effort to take advantage of the individual unique opportunities offered by each of the most popular comparison shopping engines.

Automatic Data Feed Submission

CPC Strategy will automatically upload the most recent data feed as a way to ensure that each CSE will have access to the most recent, up-to-date and accurate information for the entire product line or catalog.

Product Level Bidding

CPC Strategy will use their precise in-house ROI tracking system to determine and help estimate the most appropriate bids for the entire product line or catalog.

Custom Attributes

CPC Strategy will add any custom attributes to merchant data feeds in an effort to increase product relevancy and shopper conversion rates for the entire product line or catalog.

CPC Strategy Case Studies:

• Online Diamond Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of diamond merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

• Garden Decor Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of garden decor merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

• Hand Bag Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of hand bag merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

CPC Strategy Blog:

• Official CPC Strategy Blog

CPC Strategy now has an official blog. Some of the blog topics include topics ranging from product bidding, click fraud, tracking and landing pages to specific engines such as Google Base, Shopping.com and more.

We strive to provide busy merchants with a Comparison Shopping Campaign Management Solution freeing them to focus on the day to day intricacies of running their own business.

Rick Backus, VP New Accounts, Answers 10 Questions About CPC Strategy:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

CPC Strategy was founded in January 2007 by former employees of the comparison shopping engines. We saw firsthand how merchants were struggling to manage their spend and achieve their target ROI. It was frustrating seeing merchants making the same mistakes repeatedly again without even realizing what they were doing wrong. The lack of uniformity between CSEs makes managing multiple campaigns in-house very difficult and thus ineffective for most merchants.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

We do all of the above as we are a true Full Service Data Feed Management Solution. We provide each merchant with an ftp for data feed updates and then we take care of the rest.

New feeds are generated based on the specifications of each CSE, and our system is set-up for daily deliveries and to track the results. A weekly report is also sent out to each merchant which breaks down ROI at the product level for each CSE Campaign.

In terms of specialty services, we pride ourselves on keeping up with the constantly evolving algorithms of each CSE via regular A/B testing. This helps us in understanding what each engine is looking for and enables us to manipulate our client’s data feeds accordingly.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

If the engine accepts a data feed, we can work with them. A few examples include Pricegrabber, Shopzilla, Google Product Search, etc.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We’ll let our merchants speak for themselves: http://www.cpcstrategy.com/testimonials.html

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Merchants should understand the difference between companies that provide data feed submission tools and full service firms which handle all aspects of data feed management. There are plenty of excellent tools that help merchants manage their own campaigns in-house but we are not one of them. Our goal is to provide our clients a comparison shopping management solution that frees them to focus on the day to day intricacies of running their own business.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Underestimating the time and resources needed to build successful long term campaigns. CSEs are not like those rotisserie grills that you see advertised on late night TV, in which you can simply “set it and forget it.”

They also tend to overestimate the similarities between comparison shopping and traditional PPC. While the two share certain similarities, there exists many differences between the two, and requires true niche experts within the field to run effective campaigns.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

A/B testing! Should you alter your titles and descriptions? Should you implement a price floor and/or price ceiling? Should you run all or some of your inventory?

Data feed management is often times more art than it is science, and different merchants may yield different results–even among those within the same industry–so experimentation is a must. Without A/B testing you’ll never truly know what the right marketing mix is for your products on the CSEs.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

We believe that as time goes on CSEs are going to be thought of as less of a stand-alone destination and more as part of an integrated buying experience.

As it stands, a consumer making a purchase must first research a product, decide on a make and model, as well as where/how to buy it. We believe that in the future CSEs consolidate the buying process, allowing the consumer to make a decision without having to first visit a stand-alone destination.

Social networking will also have a major impact in comparison shopping, as applications are currently available for people to learn the buying habits of their friends, and receive recommendations via that route. Facebook already has an application that has reached the million user mark that attempts to recommend its users products that they may be interested in.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Hopefully we will stay true to our roots and stay focused on comparison shopping exclusively. Most of our competitors were SEO or PPC agencies that decided to offer a comparison shopping branch to their host of services. As far as I know, we are the only full service firm that focuses exclusively on comparison shopping and I think gives us a competitive advantage.

Also hopefully our new blog – http://blog.cpcstrategy.com – will be as popular as yours

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

It’s very hard to make a generalization like this. Performances will range considerably for different types of merchants depending on the engines, and each use different metrics to measure “success”, whether it be on profit margins, or total exposure, etc.

That being said, Nextag has been converting pretty well lately.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Rick: First, terribly sorry for any delays in getting your interview answers published Rick!! I am extremely grateful for your contribution and for you taking the time to provide such detailed, informative, entertaining answers for our readers. The thing I like most about your company and mission is the fact that CPC Strategy was started by ex-CSE employees who saw a need that wasn’t necessarily being fulfilled by competing comparison shopping engine service providers. It shows that your company representatives really do care about the success of your clients and that there is real passion behind the services you offer. It’s a pleasure to advocate for such a firm and quite refreshing to see in this world of “passion for greed” providers. On a side note, glad to see you guys went the blog route, looks like your authors are off to a tremendous start, so keep that up! I look forward to working with you again in the future on more project collaborations such as this interview and wish you a successful future as a leading CSE service provider.

To our readers: We hope you’ve all enjoyed this interview with Rick Backus about CPC Strategy’s data feed and comparison shopping engine services. Remember, we conduct interviews like this one and similar topics on a regular basis so be sure to grab our articles feed or subscribe to email updates so you’re never out of the eCommerce news loop. If you enjoyed this interview you may wish to read additional QandA’s we’ve conducted by visiting our eCommerce interviews category. Thanks again for tuning in everyone, see you next time.

CPC Strategy is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

This interview marks the second of two we have conducted with the folks over at Channel Intelligence. For more insights into the company and their services be sure to check out the first interview we did with Vik Murty about SellPath.

As a core part of their solution, Channel Intelligence offers industry leading comparison shopping and data feed services for merchants and eCommerce sellers who are interested in receiving high-end channel marketing technology from a company with a long standing reputation in this industry. The individual comparison shopping services are designed to make the process of generating, uploading, optimizing and tracking feeds as simple and easy as possible on the publisher. Also, they are setup in a way that makes it absolutely clear which campaigns are producing what, giving additional insight into the campaigns that may need to be improved or tweaked in order to produce the desired results.

Channel Intelligence Comparison Shopping Services Overview:

Channel Intelligence uses proprietary technology blended with years of industry experience to offer a level of service sought out by some of the biggest brands in eCommerce. CI uses a variety of data services that make up their CommerceIQ technology including AttributeIQ, CategoryIQ, FeedIQ, ImageIQ, ItemNameIQ, KeywordIQ, ModelIQ, TaxonomyIQ, UnificationIQ and UPCIQ. Each of the separate intelligent data services is used to generate and provide the most meaningful and complete information about each product and is then distributed throughout the CI supported comparison shopping engines.

Through our patented and patent-pending technologies, we automatically find and group like products together in our database by understanding and interpreting various naming conventions, categorizing each and every product into our Universal Type-based categories and harvesting essential search variables such as attributes and keywords. This optimized product data can be sent and received in all the commonly used formats, integrating seamlessly with existing channels and offering greater possibilities to marketers and publishers.

Steven Roth, VP of Strategic Consulting, Answers 10 Questions:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

We entered this market in April 2004 at the request of clients that were struggling to get timely data feeds from their IT departments. Since then our services have evolved into full marketing consulting and product optimization services.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

We provide everything mentioned. From a data perspective we provide enhanced product-level optimization services to help ensure retailers’ products are complete, accurate and properly placed on each shopping engine. These services include automated product-level categorization customized for each shopping engine, harvesting of attributes and keywords, and matching of product identifiers between the product catalogs of a retailer and each shopping engine.

You can see more about the data technology platform behind our services here:

http://www.channelintelligence.com/commerceiq.html

We also provide an option that lets a retailer outsource management of all aspects of their shopping engine activities, from strategic consulting to the management of the legal and financial relationships with the engines. Our services are customized to the unique needs of each client and leverage our unique expertise in this very complex and constantly changing marketing channel.

Our day-to-day management includes analyzing trends for each client and the industry in general and taking action that may include adjusting bids, suppressing products or highlighting promotions. We offer complete transparency in these activities through regular client reviews and detailed reports that drill down to the category, brand, product and order level.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

We work with over 50 destinations including all major and upcoming shopping engines, online marketplaces, affiliate networks and others.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We have more top-ranked retailers using our service for shopping engine management than any other provider in the industry today. Currently we have over 100 retailers using our SellCast Services including Target, Neiman Marcus, Best Buy, Spiegel, Circuit City, Coldwater Creek, Overstock.com, ShopNBC, West Marine, OfficeMax, Drs Foster & Smith, Skechers, eToys Direct, Northern Tool + Equipment, Smart Bargains, BenchMark Brands, Teleflora, Casual Male and ICE.com.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

When shopping for a feed generation or management firm, it’s helpful to look at the type of clients a provider works with to help assure a good fit. For example, a typical client at CI is ranked among the Internet Retailer Top 500 online retailers and is committed to profitably growing sales in this marketing channel. Merchants choose Channel Intelligence because of our unique combination of technology and expertise within this marketing channel. There are many low-cost tools from other vendors that smaller retailers can use, but we pride ourselves on providing excellent service and results to the leading online retailers.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Underestimating the time and effort it takes to make this marketing channel succeed. Our services and technology solutions are much more scalable than a single retailer could develop on its own, which makes our solutions more cost effective with a shorter ramp-up time.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

Good, accurate and complete product data. Techniques like bidding and product suppressions are useful, but only after all products are accurately displayed and placed for optimal performance. It is only after this is achieved that business decisions can be made to fine tune the results on the shopping engines.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

We definitely expect to see the best-known shopping engines maintain their presence and hopefully start to become more innovative again. The smaller shopping engines like Jellyfish and Like.com are driving innovation in this industry, which is creating a more compelling user experience and delivering qualified consumers to merchants.

We’ve already started to see specialization of shopping engines by vertical (HealthPricer, CNET, Builders Square, etc.) and target audience (“green” sites, social networking sites, etc.), and this trend will continue. We’re also seeing the product listings on the shopping engines being distributed to thousands of “mini-shopping engines” that are appearing on sites that include FaceBook, review sites and blogs.

As this marketing channel becomes increasingly complex, Channel Intelligence is leading the industry in innovations that include tracking sales from each distributed listing and supporting all of the emerging shopping engines.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Our specialization in the shopping engine niche has already been expanded to include paid search, mobile marketing, online rebates and our own CI Ad Network. These services share a patented data optimization platform that will allow Channel Intelligence to continue growing the services offered to our clients – while still maintaining the excellent customer services that our clients have come to expect.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

Each client has a unique set of goals, so “best performing” could be measured by traffic, sales, profitability, return on ad spend or any number of other success metrics. The “best performing” shopping engine for a client is the one that delivers on its goals, and the best engine for one client could be the worst engine for another. The key is to first identify how success is measured, and then to customize a marketing plan for this channel that is focused on achieving those success metrics.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Steven: I really appreciate all the time and effort you spent writing and providing these answers to us Steven. I can tell by the passion in your words that you really do care about your customers, company, services and the industry, which are all extremely important in my opinion. It was an absolute pleasure learning more about CI’s data feed services from you and I hope that this isn’t the last time we are able to collaborate on a project. It’s funny to see how the answers one person provides differ from the next. I thought you did a superb job on your responses, spot on. My favorite was probably the very last response you provided in regards to the “best performing” engines. Your answer is so right, I’m surprised others fail to realize the importance of their own unique situation rather than comparing their situation to other sites or competitors and how they perform.

To our readers: Well, I for one hope you all enjoyed reading our latest eCommerce interview with Steven Roth of Channel Intelligence. It was fun for me, I really enjoy these write-ups and it’s that much more enjoyable when I get to conduct them with some of the companies I am a major fan of, like CI. If you enjoyed this interview, you may consider visiting our interviews category which features several from all across the industry. Or, you can always subscribe to our RSS feed and we’ll deliver the news and interviews to you each time a new article is published. Until next time.

Channel Intelligence is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

ChannelBrain is Freeportway’s (parent company) service for eCommerce merchants looking to market or sell within Online marketing channels such as comparison shopping engines (CSE’s) and shopping portals. ChannelBrain’s solution is designed to help and facilitate the process of syndicating various products offered by merchants and eTailers to numerous CSE’s all from one, simple to use location and tool. In addition to the formatting, ease of syndication and one-click solution, ChannelBrain also offers users the ability to create their campaigns so that progress, or lack of, can be tracked.

ChannelBrain Comparison Shopping Services Overview:

ChannelBrain currently offers three different levels within their data feed marketing solutions. There is no need to install or download additional software in order to use the service. Instead, all the data feed tools are offered within an easy to use, simple to understand web-based application and software. In short, ChannelBrain’s services help merchants to automate, measure and optimize all their Online channel marketing campaigns.

ChannelBrain Service Level Details:

Standard Package

Cost: $59
Engines: 4
Products: 10,000
Support: Yes
API: No
Back Office: No
Analytics: Yes

Basic Package

Cost: $99
Engines: 8
Products: 10,000
Support: Yes
API: No
Back Office: No
Analytics: Yes

Pro Package

Cost: $199
Engines: Unlimited
Products: Unlimited
Support: Yes
API: Yes
Back Office: Yes
Analytics: Yes

View the ChannelBrain Brochure (PDF Format)

ChannelBrain User Forums:

• Official ChannelBrain Forums

The ChannelBrain user forums cover topics ranging from how-to’s and announcements to tips and information about supported engines. Right now the user-base doesn’t seem to be that large, however there are some good posts about the system in there like setup and starting out topics.

ChannelBrain Blog:

• Official ChannelBrain Blog

ChannelBrain also has a blog, where those interested in finding out more, or receiving updates on ChannelBrain, and the CSE industry, can go to learn about insider happenings. The blog archives go back to March 2007, and although it appears as though it hasn’t been updated recently, I checked it out and there is some really good information about their services and views on the industry on it. Be sure to drop by and take a peak when visiting the site.

Gary MacDougall, CEO, Answers 10 Questions About ChannelBrain:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

Our existing customers were requesting feed output from our shopping cart system. We also so a great need to simplify this process as there were (at the time) no affordable solutions on the market that brought all the facets of channel marketing into one package.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

We provide feed generation, tracking and reporting and optimization / management. We also provide integration tools for back-office and shopping cart systems to further ease the process. We support shopping carts like Yahoo Merchant and back-office systems like Mail Order Manager.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

We support 13 at the moment, but we add new ones periodically.

• Google Products
• Yahoo Shopping
• PriceGrabber
• PriceRunner
• Gifts.com
• TheFind
• MSN Live
• Become.com
• BuyersEdge
• Pronto
• Shopping.com
• Shopzilla
• Smarter.com
• Nextag

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We have about 50 or so customers using the product.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Does the company understand the model and is just not selling a “tool”. Lot’s of factors about CSE marketing are not just about getting the data-feed in, there’s a lot a of things that need to be done to be able to understand how to optimize the feed to improve its performance.

Not a lot of tool providers care about that, they focus on the ability to get the feed up to the engine, and thats it.

Choosing a provider that cares about conversions is something that the customers overlook. They look at the cost of the product, pick the cheapest and really get what they pay for.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Not understanding how to measure. Just syndicating your inventory and not being able to optimize or improve your ROI is one of the biggest mistakes merchants make. Choosing a good tool to help you do this is probably one of the most important parts of the process.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

The increased natural link exposure that your products will get. Many of the CSE’s will advertise your links / products to various places that are typically going to help with improving your sites natural search exposure. For example, Shopping.com will syndicate links to your products in Google, this is considered more “back links” to your site, which can improve your organic search results of your site.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

Broken. Sadly, I think that the CSE’s have gotten a little greedy in that they are not keeping up with technology and focusing far too much on clicks and costs per click vs. trying to provide a valuable service to the visitors of their site. When you look at the landscape, its changing rapidly as Google Base / Products has really leveled a lot of the playing field and made it hard to compete in the space for shoppers. The bottom line, customers are getting “savvy” in that they know if they search for a product, the first couple links are “paid”.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Gary: I just wanted to express how appreciative I am that you were able to participate in this QandA! I am a big time advocate of the services you offer and it’s always great to get introduced and find out more about some of the best ones, such as you offer. I am truly sorry for any hick-ups along the way, like email issues or lost question answers, I am not sure what happened there, but really glad that despite all that, we were still able to get it done and posted. Please don’t hesitiate to drop by and comment or fill us all in on anything new going on at ChannelBrain, or Freeportway. Thanks so much for the quality answers and for getting them back as quickly as you did. Look forward to watching your service blossom and grow.

To our readers: I hope everyone enjoyed reading our latest CSE data feed services interview with Gary from ChannelBrain. I have personally learned so much from these QandA’s, it’s been really fun. I look forward to conducting many more in the future, so be sure to let me know if there’s anything missing in them that you’d like to see in future interviews. As always, if you would like to read past interviews I have posted, simply visit the eCommerce Interviews category on our sidebar. If you’d prefer to subscribe, we offer a full articles feed, email updates and RSS for the interviews category only. Just copy and paste any of those URLs into your favorite feed reader. Thanks for your loyal readership everyone, your the reason I do all this and without our readers, it wouldn’t be nearly as special as it has been!

ChannelBrain is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

We have recently added a new section to our comparison shopping guide dedicated to the top data feed companies that currently offer comparison shopping engine listing services including feed generation, submission, distribution, management and tracking. Some merchants find it difficult to setup, manage and track their individual CSE campaigns and sometimes they just don’t have the time to deal with all that’s involved. For this reason, several companies now offer different services designed to help ease or take-over these tasks for any merchant who may fit into either category.

One such company featured on our data feeds list, DoubleClick Performics, was gracious enough to spend some time with me in order to discuss their comparison shopping solution details more in depth. I hope to eventually take the time to talk with each company on our list so that our readers can pick and choose based on the individual needs or goals of any CSE campaign.

DoubleClick Performics is the search engine and affiliate marketing division of DoubleClick Inc. (recently acquired by Google) Performics is based out of Chicago while the international headquarters of DoubleClick are in New York. The company and subsidiaries feature a host of digital marketing and technology services ranging from affiliate marketing, SEM, data feed solutions and consulting to proprietary tracking or reporting technologies, account management and much more to add to their years of industry expertise.

DoubleClick currently services many of the world’s top marketing, publishing and agency brands including About.com, PriceGrabber, Vegas.com, Ford, Friendster and MTV. Performics also serves as a valued resource for top brands such as iRobot, Pottery Barn, United Airlines and many hundreds more to add to their years of expertise.

Here’s what Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, had to say about the DoubleClick acquisition…

We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed. With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.

(I’ll save comments on all that for another article and topic in the future)

DoubleClick Performics Comparison Shopping Solution Overview:

DoubleClick Performics uses a proprietary feed automation platform to build, optimize, and submit your product catalog. Rapid implementation places power back in the marketer’s hands to better control messaging, promote in-stock items and react to seasonal demands.

DoubleClick CSE Solution Allows Merchants To…

• Upload product data via email or FTP site
• Automatically validate and report errors
• Exclude certain products from select partner feeds

In addition, DoubleClick Performics will distribute your feed across 18 of the top comparison shopping engines and much more.

Performics Blog:

• Official Performics Blog

For updates, news and articles on Performics solutions be sure to visit the official DoubleClick Performics blog. While you’re there, make sure you subscribe to their feed, that way you never miss out on upcoming news or announcements. Performics blog categories include affiliate marketing, emerging opportunities, product features, search marketing and system maintenance.

DoubleClick Blog:

• Official DoubleClick Blog

For more information and updated announcements be sure to check out the DoubleClick blog. They have categories covering all their individual products and solutions including topics on creativity and innovation, industry commentary, news and events, research and tips.

Stuart Larkins, VP of Search, Answers 10 Questions About Performics:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

DoubleClick Performics was founded as Dynamic Trade, an affiliate marketing company, in 1998 and launched comprehensive search engine marketing services in 2001.

DoubleClick Performics takes a thinking forward approach to performance marketing for 300 of the world’s top brands. With the right blend of insight, technological investment and response-oriented marketing plans we engage and deliver more consumers for our clients.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

DoubleClick Performics serves clients with three primary performance marketing solutions: affiliate, search and digital consulting. Its affiliate marketing solutions provide advertisers and publishers large and small with industry-leading technology, superior customer service and exceptional support. The firm’s comprehensive search offering pairs consumer engagement expertise with technical innovation to empower advertisers to think forward about search engine marketing; marketers utilize these industry leading services for a wide range of programs, including integrated search, paid search, natural search, local search, comparison shopping and paid inclusion.

Our comparison shopping solution distributes single feeds to multiple sites, facilitating quick and simultaneous updates across properties. DoubleClick Performics manages programs for more than 100 clients across 13 comparison shopping engines. Our experts utilize advanced technology to enhance program development through a proven methodology.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

DoubleClick Performics manages client data feeds with comparison shopping engines, Web publishers and participants in the company’s affiliate network, some of which include:

Google, Yahoo!, MSN, BizRate, NexTag, Shopping.com, PriceGrabber, Smarter.com, Gifts.com, Findgift.com, Become.com, Pronto, and PriceRunner.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

DoubleClick Performics’ data feed management technology helps power more than 100 current DoubleClick Performics data feed clients and offers online advertisers an opportunity to leverage online distribution, improve reach and ranking, and drive sales through search, shopping comparison and affiliate Web sites.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

When selecting a feed management firm, it is important to align with an agency that understands the merchant’s business goals and encompasses the following features:

• Proven expertise in the feed management space
• Scalable technology
• Dedicated account team
• Proprietary optimization methodology
• Strong partnerships with CSEs
• Understand and practice a holistic approach to digital marketing

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Choosing the wrong partner is the biggest mistake merchants can make when venturing into the complex world of data feed marketing.

• Over-automation: Strong technology is only one element of data feeds; experienced practitioners are crucial to successful programs
• Underestimating the value of new-to-file customers; feeds provide the highest NTF rates
• Under-utilization of search, affiliate and other online marketing data to strengthen data feed program
• Too broad an ROI focus; merchants should closely manage ROI at the product level

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

Robust tracking and analysis drives more efficient programs. Using analytics to the fullest potential grants deep insight into why some products sold more effectively than others and creates opportunity for correction. DoubleClick Performics analyzes data down to the SKU level, and leverages search and affiliate data to optimize feeds. Knowing what you didn’t sell and why allows you to optimize and correct problems.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

As consumers become more sophisticated online and increase their use of comparison shopping engines, advertisers will allocate more resources and budget towards feeds. DoubleClick Performics has superior relationships with the top comparison shopping engines, enabling advertisers to expand reach, improve relevancy and cost effectively connect with more consumers. Through audits of current client initiatives, DoubleClick Performics also provides an understanding of the market landscape and potential opportunities within emerging media and offers strategy based on clients’ capabilities.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

DoubleClick Performics continues to strengthen and invest in its teams, technology, proprietary methodologies and strategic partnerships to deliver qualified consumers for clients. Emerging media, mobile, etc.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

As a leader in the feeds, search and affiliate space, DoubleClick Performics works successfully with thousands of publishers and engines to earn optimal revenue for our advertisers.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Stuart: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer a few QandA questions about DoubleClick Performics for our readers. I especially like your stand on empowering the merchant, keeping control in their hands (that is important to the point that they know everything that’s going on with their campaigns in order to properly track ROI). I am really relieved to see that you continue to reach out and inform potential clients about your services and that the recent acquisition hasn’t seemed to put any cramps in the way things are done at your company. I personally can’t wait to see some of the newer innovations a company like DoubleClick is capable of creating, it should certainly be a fun and exciting year in the comparison shopping space. Once again, thanks for taking the time to spread the word about your comparison shopping engine and data feed management solution. Please don’t hesitiate to send us any developments or news about feature releases or company happenings, I would love to work with you again in the future.

To our readers: I really hope all the readers out there have enjoyed this interview with VP of Search at DoubleClick Performics about their services. Keep in mind that we hope to eventually conduct more QandA type interviews like this with other data feed management and service companies. If you liked this interview be sure to check out the others in our interviews section and if you don’t want to miss out on any in the future, you can always subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send the next one to you!

DoubleClick Performics is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

It looks like the folks over at PriceGrabber have rolled out a fresh new look for the comparison shopping sites homepage. There were some initial reports from around the blogoshere that they have been testing it for about a month now, and it looks like they are pleased with it, as the new design appears to be here to stay (before it was only being displayed at certain times to certain visitors).

The first thing you’ll probably notice that’s different is that they are no longer using a 100% fluid width homepage design, which can still be seen if you navigate anywhere off the new homepage. Not only that, but the new fixed width layout is center aligned, which is a common practice among many of the CSE’s, although 100% widths make it easier to squeeze in all the different data that is needed to run a comparison shopping engine in 2008 (comparisons, reviews, useful features, updates, etc). In addition to the new layout and fixed design, there are other much need improvements that have been made.

New PriceGrabber Homepage Screenshot:

Click the thumbnail to see the whole page, then check out the individual sections below

New Search Bar & Quick Links Section:

One of the things that stood out to me the most about the new design was the new and improved search bar with quick links section. On the old design, PriceGrabber had the quick links on a green background and the search bar was on a gray background below the links. Now you’ll see they reversed the order, and background colors in an attempt to improve how user interact with their product search.

Now the search bar appears on the green background and the quick links are within the whitespace below the search. The search bar also features a sampling of popular product searches such as iPods, Digital Cameras, GPS and Plasma TV.

Better Category Layout & Mouse-Hover Subcategories:

Another much needed improvement to the PriceGrabber design is their new category structure featuring mouse-hover subcategories (which I haven’t seen too much within the CSE space). The old categories were plain jane text links without any access to the subcategories other than clicking through to one of the category pages. The links were blue and appeared within a lightly shaded rounded corner gray background image (they can still be seen by clicking off the new homepage). It looks to me that they have added a few new categories or maybe promoted some of their popular subcategories to the main category tree (cats used to start with computers, now appliances are at the top).

The new categories are green, bigger and have a 100% better looking background image to make them stand out even more on the page. Also, near the bottom of the homepage category tree you can see featured or special interest categories which are purple in color, rather than green. not only have the categories been rearranged/expanded, colored differently and improved in appearance, they also feature new and improved mouse-hover subcategories. Hover over any of the new homepage categories and now shoppers can catch a glimpse of popular subcategories that reside within a main category. for instance, if you hover over Appliances, you’ll see subcategories for Small Appliances, Large Appliances,, Air Cleaners, Heating & Cooling, Vacuums and a link to more for that category. Pretty impressive feature, useful too. It also makes for good usability and provides easier access to deeper pages.

Featured, Most Popular & Highest Rated Products Section:

One of the best improvements to the PriceGrabber front page is the addition of their featured products display. It runs displays and describes product details for some of the featured items including GPS, Storage Devices, Cameras, Boots and TVs in a visible, easy to use, easy to read display box. The previous homepage design main space was filled with their categories much like link directories do, in my opinion, this is much better use of the prime real estate right at the top middle of the main page content area. The old look gave a lot more precedence to the categories and very little to the different useful shopping sections. To their credit, the graphics off to the right they used to have for these sections were nice, but this is much better.

Now the featured product area on the main page includes a variety of information and links to the featured product details and of course, links to buy those items or compare prices. The screenshot example above show the TomTom One GPS, priced as low as $173.98, with 4.5 out of 5 stars from 25 reviews, description, link to more GPS, and finally, the really useful links for comparing prices, reading product details or reviews and discussions. Overall, this works out great as they are able to display 5 of the different featured products, with all the pertinent information a consumer would need, only using up a small portion of the main page. Great use of technology, space and information by the PriceGrabber team.

Not only does PriceGrabber do a quality job of displaying their featured products, they also do it with their most popular and highest rated products. As we mentioned above, the old homepage look focused on categories in the main content space. Another wise move on PriceGrabbers part was adding sections here instead dedicated to showcasing popular and rated items. Using that space in this manner is much better and was indeed another much needed improvement.

The new most popular and highest rated product section is a great example of the direction PriceGrabber is headed. The most popular products are chosen and displayed based off of the top three viewed items on the site. The highest rated products are chosen and display based of user votes. The three with the most votes are displayed on the new homepage. Most Popular items show shoppers a thumbnail, product name and prices where as the highest rated items show shoppers a thumbnail, product name and the number of stars/reviews received. Below each section are links to view more popular or rated products on PriceGrabber.

PriceGrabber Sponsored Blogs & ShopGreen Section:

PriceGrabber has done a very smart thing by introducing more of their blogs and the content within them right in plain view on the new homepage. Blogs are a great source of traffic, links and community loyalty, I am impressed when I see CSE’s use blogs, but even more impressed when they use them in the right manner. PriceGrabber is now able to direct more traffic to their blogs and vice versa, making it easier for the community or readers to interact with the shopping engine. The old design featured small banners off to the right of the category links, they were in plain view, but they didn’t make them sound as exciting or look as coo as where and how they do it now.

The new blog and ShopGreen section is directly under the featured, popular and rated product within the main page content area. The first banner and text link goes to blogBytes (personal computing news), the second to Gadget Blog (gadget news) and lastly a banner and link for their SHOPgreen section and blog (learn about green shopping). Notice how all the blogs and ShopGreen section reside on the PriceGrabber.com domain and not separate domains link shopgreenblog or whatever. Many sites do not follow this rule and are missing out on links, traffic and making their domain authoritative by not putting blogs and useful site section on the company domain.

Plenty Of Room For Anything Else:

The old PriceGrabber site didn’t leave much room within the main page content for promotions, new sections or anything else the team might have to showcase on the main page. Seasonal graphics, specials, linkbait ideas, contests, more items and more could all be possible fits for the remaining space below the featured, popular, rated, blogs sections.

The extra space on the main page currently features a PriceGrabber promotion for post holiday products. The post holiday guide is meant to help consumers shop for gift ideas, post holiday stress relief and more. This is a great idea that I can’t remember seeing on any other CSE before. It is a useful section that adds some great content to their site. I know these kind of guides get tons of visitors, lots of links and pretty decent buzz around the Web, depending on the type of guide or products mentioned in it. It”s a good start for them and the extra space on their main page. Can’t wait to see what they decide to rotate in ant out of that area.

Storefronts, Alerts & Product Reviews:

The old PriceGrabber main page hardly gave any attention to some of their main features including PriceGrabber Storefronts, Lists and Alerts or Product Reviews. They used to just appear as text links, there was never really anything that made them stand out on the page before.

That’s all changed with the new look. As Pricegrabber is attempting to improve overall, of course they are going to have to continue promoting the things that have made them what they are today. Some of those things include their storefronts, alert feature and product reviews. Near the bottom of the new homepage are links to those sections with a brief description of each one. I like how they use pleasant graphics along with brief descriptions and links to these important sections. They make good use of space and bring the proper attention to these features and site areas. It’s interesting to see them promoting their storefronts so much, as well as the alert feature. I don’t remember seeing anything on them being updated. Might be something to keep an eye on, the storefronts and some of the other sections may shortly be getting a fresh look too.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

All in all I think PriceGrabber has done an excellent job testing and implementing their new homepage design. I hope they roll out something simiar for the rest of the pages soon as I could really get used to this look and new and improved functionality, concentrating on core content and useful guides rather than JUST the price comparison side of things.

I like the new layout and use of space within the page. I think they chose to link to and display some of their really useful site features and sections. I am impressed at how they have blended in their social, review and blog content without it appearing too messy or crammed into the design. It’s also a very wise move for them to bring more attention to those features, it’s certainly going to be a trend in 2008, if not already.

Nice work PriceGrabber team. hopefully you liked my feedback and I can’t wait to see you implement a newer design for the rest of the site, it is MUCH NEEDED. For anyone else who wishes to provide direct feedback to PriceGrabber, they are asking for it. Simply email them at feedback [at] pricegrabber.com.

I recently noticed a change to the ‘Products’ link in Google’s main navigation. Not too long ago they removed the ‘Video’ link and replaced it with ‘Products’ instead. Now they have changed the ‘Products’ link again, but this time they renamed it to ‘Shopping’ on the main navigation found on all results pages and Google’s main page.

The wording Products might have been confusing to Google users not already familiar with Google Product Search (formerly Froogle), whereas the anchor text Shopping may be a bit more user friendly and clear to users who have not heard about Product Search or used it themselves in the past. I am glad they decided to change it and have been updating so many of their product/shopping/payment services recently. If they did a better job of informing users about their Product Search service I wouldn’t have to keep appending ‘formerly Froogle’ every time I first mention Google Product Search in an article.

Here’s the BEFORE version with the anchor text, Products…

Here’s the AFTER version with the anchor text, Shopping…

Keep a watchful eye out for more changes to Google’s Product Search, their Checkout service and also Google Base. I have a feeling these are just a few of the first changes we can expect to see from Google relating to their eCommerce orientated service offerings.

I was browsing news headlines yesterday and came across an interesting one on CNN Money about Google Product Search. According to the news piece, the comparison shopping engine site by Google has been experiencing dramatic drops in traffic to their shopping service while comparable shopping search services such as TheFind.com or Pronto.com and even Yahoo Shopping have all increased or remained steady, at the least.

I thought the article was well written and deserved some attention as I don’t recall seeing much about it when it was first published yesterday (I thought it was odd to see the article published on CNN Money and not some other site geared more towards the eCommerce/CSE space). One of the things I liked about the write-up most was the collection of opinions that were gathered by the article author from well-known, influential individuals or companies including other comparison shopping engine employees and founders.

Brief Article Overview:

According to comScore, Google Product Search’s October 2007 unique visitor count dropped 79% from October 2006. It was the biggest drop out of the top 25 comparison shopping search services.

So the main point of the article seems to be the fact that Google, a company who owns over 50% of the search market in the United States, is unable to transition those types of results and numbers to some of their other search services including Videos and Products/Shopping. Although Google was unable to comment on the article topic, and there was no ‘official’ answer from them, I believe the opinions of many of the individuals in the story were right on target.

Here’s what Greg Sterling, of Sterling Market Intelligence, had to say…

You would think that comparison shopping is an area that Google would be emphasizing, but they are not. It goes back to Google’s Darwinian philosophy about its products, which is allowing these things to go out into the world and gain traction — or not.

Here’s what Ron LaPierre, chief executive of PriceGrabber.com, had to say…

Google just hasn’t put enough effort into making the site more competitive. They focused more on taking information from all different sources and presenting it not necessarily in a very structured, accurate and consistent environment.

Here’s what Siva Kumar, chief executive of TheFind.com, had to say…

Froogle started too early. We couldn’t have started our company three years ago, because computers weren’t powerful enough yet. Froogle didn’t have the benefits of all the (advancements) that have happened over the last few years.

Here’s what Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of SearchEngineLand, had to say…

If the company was looking to drum up some holiday shopping traffic, it might have been a little late. (Speaking about the addition of the Products link to the main navigation around Thanksgiving 2007)

My Opinion & Final Thoughts:

To me, this is another clear cut case of a search engine that wants to be everything to everyone (obviously, since Google states that themselves). The problem with that philosophy is that, at times, it can also be a hindrance to a company, especially if there’s too many projects on the table and too few people to PROPERLY launch, manage, test, scale, improve and promote all of them.

The same thing happened to Yahoo Shopping and will most likely happen over at Live Product Search. Although, Yahoo is further ahead than Google when it comes to their shopping services and time in the space. The BIG guys don’t give enough attention to these services, they never really have, any of them. Why would they all of a sudden start now? Oh, because there’s billions of dollars spent annually from shopping Online, plus all the opportunities to get new sponsored listing advertisers. The thing is, the shopping services that are just that, shopping services, will eventually overtake the ones who have too many other services on their plate to remain competitive, even potentially Google (if they don’t invest some money, time and dedicated staff to this, as they have slowly begun to now).

I am all for any service that help shoppers find the product(s) they want quickly, easily and without hassle, and generally I like a lot of the ones that are out there, including Google, Yahoo and Live.com shopping services. It’s just my opinion that some of them will have a hard time increasing traffic and remaining competitive when they are up against companies like TheFind.com, with unbelievable funding, talented staff, motivated programmers and being able to spend ALL their time and effort on JUST the shopping service.

Our regular blog readers know that I am quite fond of the comparison shopping engine known as TheFind.com. It’s one of the CSE’s I regularly post about and advocate for and continues to move up on my list as one of the best product search destinations with social shopping capabilities. Not too long ago, we posted about some of the things TheFind is doing to make their search service even better including their mini-malls, virtual shopping districts, improved product mouse hovers and even an advanced search and browsing history features.

Today, TheFind has launched yet another new and useful feature for shoppers and merchants which allows TheFind.com users to be able to search and discover local shopping destinations for products within a specific geographic area. Not only that, but the new local search sorting and refinement capability also includes an in-store availability feature and shows the user related maps, all from one page for quick and easy access to products close to a shoppers’ physical locations.

Local Search & Shopping Overview:

TheFind’s new local search capabilities allow shoppers to…

• Search for products available through local retail outlets. For example, a search for UGG boots in and around Miami would show store locations that are within 20 miles of the shopper’s location. Consumers can easily adjust the search area to comprise a 40- or 50-mile radius, if desired.
• Immediately identify local retail outlets near you that carry desired items. After searching for a product on TheFind, search results will display items from both online retailers and local retail outlets – with local stores clearly identified via a “Local” icon.
• Check in-store availability. For select outlets supporting this capability, TheFind enables shoppers to see which nearby stores have a particular item in-stock. Additionally, all listings for local retailers have phone numbers listed so busy shoppers can call to check in-stock status.
• Quickly and easily determine which retail outlets offering the desired items are closest in proximity. For every search, TheFind graphically maps all the local brick and mortar stores carrying the items of interest. Consumers can use the map to determine which location is the closest to them, saving time and resources. The site also provides street addresses and phone numbers for each store location.
• Compare each store’s offerings and obtain the very best deal. TheFind puts a wealth of information at users’ fingertips to enable shoppers to assess the total overall cost of goods. TheFind alerts shoppers to various considerations such as sale items and promotions and driving distance of retail outlets, so they can make purchasing decisions based on their individual preferences and criteria. Integration of online prices and local offers helps consumers determine the best possible options.

Here’s what Siva Kumar, TheFind’s Co-Founder and CEO, had to say about the launch…

While there are a number of shopping sites that offer local search capabilities to varying degrees, with this added capability, TheFind brings the most comprehensive and complete local shopping search to the market. We are responding to consumer demands by merging online shopping and offline shopping research all in one single website to most closely align with how consumers use the Internet. These new local features are an added bonus around the holidays, as shopping days begin to dwindle and consumers start to hurry to complete their gift lists. Leveraging TheFind.com, consumers can shop at home first and find products at stores nearby, so they can pick up the merchandise themselves, quickly and easily, avoiding costly rush shipping charges.

Setting A Geographic Location For Local Product/Merchant Results:

The local product and merchant search feature only works for your geographic location once the actual city, state and zip code are entered in by the shopper. In addition, TheFind users can set the distance (in miles) from their physical location in order to narrow down results and find the store or product that is closest to the city, state and zip code that have been entered by the user.

Currently, there are two places in which a shopper can enter their physical location and set the miles away distance. The most noticeable spot is right under the main search bar at the top of every search result page.

The second, less noticeable, is under TheFind logo on the left hand sidebar under the ‘refine by’ section. The refinement section now features sorting options for price, color, sale items, new items and now we can refine by local items too.

You can see from the screenshots that I searched for a ‘Cashmere Scarf‘ within 50 miles of Redmond, Wa 98052.

Browsing Local Product/Merchant Results:

Once the desired geographic location has been set and a search has been performed, TheFind will show you local results related to the item(s) you queried, including a map with the store locations, the store name, distance from your location, address, phone number and how to check availability at specific local shops. In addition, off the right side of the map and store information are additional local shops that match your search and location. These results can be sorted by relevance or distance from the set location and once clicked on will bring up that stores information next to the map.

Local Shopping Map Results:

A must have feature for local search engines, especially product comparison engines, is the ability to display a map of all the physical store locations surrounding the geographic area of interest which show shoppers locations in which they can find and buy the product they queried from the search function. Users can go down the list one by one to see availability of the item, they can sort results on the map by location or they can change locations or distance. TheFind.com uses Yahoo Powered Maps for their local search mapping locations.

Local Shopping Store Information & Product Availability:

Another must have for local search services would be the ability to see data about each store result such as brand, distance, address location, phone number and any other related information about the store that carries any items you have searched for. TheFind has done a good job of providing this data, which appears next to the maps on the right hand side. I can easily see which store I am looking at, how far away they are from my location, their address and information on how I can find out if the item(s) I searched for are available at that location or not. IN addition, shoppers can change the their searching location from the store information section by clicking on the ‘Change’ link, like we discussed previously.

Local Shopping Store Results & Sorting Shops:

An additional great feature to TheFind’s local search capability is the store results list that appears to the right of the store information sections. The list features names for shops that carry the item(s) that were searched for within a specific geographical location and allows shoppers to refine results according to relevance or distance. In addition, when users click on each store from the list, that store’s information will show up to the left of the list so it is clear to shoppers how far away the shop is, and all the other information which was covered in the section above. There’s also a magnifying glass icon next to the results that when clicked, will show shoppers that individual store on the map along with the information related to that shop.

Local Shopping Mouse-Hover Results:

Finally, there’s a new addition to the already improved product mouse-hovers that feature local shopping and stores near you data by simply hovering the mouse over a product on the local results pages. There’s so many ways to find the local shops it’s amazing, yet they keep the clean look and feel as well as the site usability intact and undisturbed. It’s a great way to see if the products you want can be picked up or purchased at stores near your geographic location or any specified location withing local search results.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

Wow, I am so surprised by this move, yet happy to see a CSE jumping into local search for products. I have said many times that the shopping sites that are able to blend comparisons, social and local will eventually be the leaders in years to come and now, finally, TheFind has shown us that they hope to be the first site to merge all three key aspects. Not only have they found a way to blend all of these useful shopping tools together, but they do it in a sleek, easy to use interface that is pleasant for shoppers and converts well for merchants.

This feature is great for holiday shopping, school shopping, last minute gift ideas and a whole bunch more that I can think of. I have said it before and will say it again, TheFind is doing a wonderful job with their venture capital, I hope they can continue to crank out features like this in the record time they have been able to so far. If they can, they will certainly prove that they are THE comparison, social and local search engine for products or shops.

Google Base Blog announced today that they are changing the name of their ‘bulk uploads’ tab to be more in line with eCommerce publisher and merchant terminology. The tab will now be called ‘data feeds,’ which still appears under the My Items tab next to Active and Inactive Item links (see screenshot above).

According to Chris Azalde of the Google Base Support team, the change is part of Google’s effort to listen and implement their users’ feedback. Apparently, the terminology, bulk uploads, isn’t as clear to some as the more commonly used term, data feeds. The change only affects the name of the specific content submission service, the functionality will remain the same, and still sports the recently updated data feeds dashboard look and feel.

This is only a terminology change, so just know that when we refer to your ‘data feeds’ or ‘feeds,’ it’s what we used to refer to as ‘bulk uploads’ or ‘uploads.’

I think it’s good that Google continues to improve their system, functionality and features. Personally, I didn’t think the name was too confusing, however I do think that the term data feeds is more commonly used among industry professionals and long time merchant sellers. I think it’s important to continue to use industry standard terms or terminology whenever possible, so overall I do think this will help to keep everyone on the same page. I find myself explaining to merchants what data feeds/bulk uploads are all the time, so the fact that Google is moving towards the standardized term makes me happy.

If you ask me, this name change is not about being more clear and keeping sellers on the same page. I think it’s a move on Google’s part to rank under the term data feeds (in order to beat out some of the data feed service providers) and to increase exposure to their Base data feeds service. I also believe that they changed the name because of the increasing number of service providers who started using the term bulk uploads when that tool was originally launched.

We saw the same thing when they re-branded Froogle to Product Search. It’s not about being more clear, it’s about trying to rank under the terms ‘products‘ and ‘product search‘ in their own search engine (which they currently do rank for, but didn’t until the name change back in April 2007).

I love Google, don’t get me wrong, but don’t let them fool you into thinking changes like this are solely for the good of the industry, in my opinion, they always have ulterior motives that accomplish more than one thing.

In addition to the duplicate content issues I found, I also wanted to bring to light the many Froogle pages that still remain in Google’s index, despite being replaced by Google Product Search back in April 2007. Right now, if you type froogle.com into your address bar or even froogle.google.com, you’ll be redirected to the new product service at www.google.com/products. This is common, especially when changing domains or file locations, and it is good practice to use these types of 301 redirects, as Google stated about a year ago on the Webmaster Central blog.

Many of you are already aware that Froogle used to be the product search site powered and operated by Google and that it has now been replaced by Product Search, however it appears that Google may be having a tough time getting older Froogle subdomain (froogle.google.com) pages out of their index (or updated), including the Shopping List pages that Google users have been creating since Product Search used to be Froogle.

The screenshot above shows the number of English results still remaining in Google’s index using the search query site:froogle.google.com. It is important to remember that these are only English results, there are other foreign language pages on the Froogle subdomain, but I chose not to use them in my example as they may be using them in way that I am not aware of.

As I started sifting through the different results that are showing up, I noticed quite a few interesting things, including duplicate content pages for the Google Directory that show up under a froogle.google.com subdomain and many Google Shopping List pages still residing on froogle.google.com subdomain. I can understand that Google has yet to update the Shopping List pages, it’s not that popular of a service, but in my opinion, they should as it’s up to them to practice what they preach and set the bar for the rest of us. Rather than using the froogle.google.com/shoppinglist/ location I would 301 redirect those pages to www.google.com/products/shoppinglist, and more specifically either the www. or non-www. version of those pages, with or without the trailing slash (easy fix).

But what about the Google Directory results on the froogle.google.com subdomain? I can’t understand why these pages even exist as Froogle was never really part of Google Directory (powered by DMOZ). I was amazed to see that they are still indexed, but I didn’t think too much of it since I realize those pages may not have been crawled again recently, however when I clicked on one, I was not redirected, I was taken to a Google Directory results page on a froogle.google.com subdomain, weird. Take a peak below.

1. First, go to http://froogle.google.com/Top/Shopping/
2. Next, take away the froogle part and go to http://www.google.com/Top/Shopping/

What you see is duplicate content. In this instance it’s the exact same page, only they reside under different file locations. You typically see this with the www. version and non-www. version (which Google does right, try http://google.com/Top/Shopping/ ) rather than subdomains. The old pages (froogle) should be redirected to the existing Google Directory pages instead of both existing. Not only that, but many of the froogle.google.com pages have been crawled lately which tells me that this has most likely been overlooked by engineers (whoops).

As I began digging deeper I was stunned to see that not only are their froogle.google.com pages still in Google (quite a few of them) and half of them are duplicates of the Google Directory AND Open Directory AND anyone else who uses DMOZ data, but their are also duplicate pages for the MAIN Google Product Search page (www.google.com/products) still indexed. Take a peak below.

1. First, go to http://froogle.google.com/products
2. Next, go to http://froogle.google.com/index.html
3. After that, take away the froogle part and go to http://www.google.com/products

They are all the same pages and the first two are considered duplicate content. Same as the Google Directory example, it’s mostly common with www. and non-www. versions of the domain (this time Google doesn’t do it right, try http://google.com/products and also try http://google.com/products/). Notice the trailing slash at the end of the last one. All of those versions should be 301 redirected back to the main version at www.google.com/products (with no trailing slash, or whatever they choose to use and stick with).

I can’t understand why they would let this go or overlook it. It seems like they are preaching a bunch of things they don’t actually practice across all of their services. Hopefully this post gets picked up by the right people at Google and they actually listen to some of this feedback, it’s not right to penalize sites for duplicate content, when they have the same issues themselves. You can see by searching for “products” that Google is number one and two in the results. The first one is the main page and the second is duplicate with a session variable appended to the end.

My regular readers know that I have been giving a lot of attention to Google Product Search and Base the past two weeks as they continue to add new features and improve both of those services. They have even been updating Google Checkout policies lately. Hmmm, makes one wonder what’s in store, looks like they are getting ready to do something BIG with all of the attention that these core Google commerce services have been getting recently.

So, what are the new Google Product Search Features? Check them out below, you won’t be sorry…

Compare Buttons & Product Search Results:

The very first thing I noticed was the addition of a new “Compare Prices” button within Google Product Search results. I had never seen it there before today and it really caught me by surprise (in a good way). Obviously, I clicked through to see what it did, and when I got to the next page I was greeted with a whole page of new information about the item I had originally searched for, iPod Touch.

When you see the Compare Prices button in search results, it means that there are more than one of those items with a range of prices that can now be compared on Product Search pages (just like a comparison shopping engine would show). Once you click the button it will take you to a comparison page for the item you searched. The comparison page includes helpful information for consumers who may be looking to buy the item they searched for.

New Product Search Information Includes…

• Price ranges and number of sellers offering the item
• Product title, brand and category
• Review stars and number of review available
• A description of the product being compared
• A ‘compare prices’ tab featuring price, relevance and seller ratings
• A ‘user reviews’ tab featuring syndicated reviews from multiple sources
• A ‘technical specifications’ tab featuring genera and detailed specs

Price Ranges & Sellers:

As you can see in the graphic above, Google now shows a range of prices for the item in the regular Google Product Search results and also on the comparison page itself. This helps tremendously when shopping, since lets face it, there are a ton of options available when shopping for certain items, especially electronics. In addition, the results show the number of stores that are included in the comparison page for a given item. i should note that these compare price buttons do not currently show up for all items, it appears as if they are testing it with popular items that are sold by many different store, that have reviews.

Product Title, Brand & Category:

I like how the product title, brand and category are right at the top left of each comparison page. It makes it easy to see what you’re looking at, who makes it and the shopping category it belongs to. They also make the title font bigger, which makes it stand out more to shoppers who may be browsing a comparison page.

Review Stars & Available Reviews:

Product Search has used reviews for awhile now, but now they look to be using them in a totally new way. Each comparison page has a star rating average according to the number of reviews for a particular item. Next to each star rating is the number of reviews that are available and a link to see them all down in the read reviews tab.

Product Description:

The product descriptions on the comparison pages are from Google, the merchant descriptions are still on individual pages but I like how Google uses their own description at the top of each product comparison page. They are accurate, up to date and not too short or too long, they look good and are very helpful for determining whether the item you are viewing is what you are looking for.

Comparing Prices:

The price comparison tab is the best one, in my opinion. On this tab, items are sorted by relevance and seller rating. The tab also shows the prices of the item for each merchants and whether or not they accept Google Checkout. It’s simple, easy to use and gives all the pertinent information a shopper could want to view before clicking through to buy an item they are interested in.

Reading Reviews:

The user reviews tab features syndicated reviews from a variety of sources including Epinions, DigitalTrends, PriceGrabber, Pricerunner and more. Reviews are sorted by star rating and freshness, so you will always see the newest ones, from the highest raters, or you can click back a few pages to see the lowest ratings or bad reviews. I assume in the future they will make this page more sortable, including the ability to change the ordering of user reviews.

Technical Specification:

The technical specification tab features general specifications and information including audio system, built-in display, equalizer, digital player (recorder), headphones, connections, miscellaneous, battery, system requirements, manufacturer warranty and more, depending on the type of items you are comparing. These match up with specific item type attributes that can be used within a data feed upon submitting to Google Base. The specs page tells shoppers anything and everything they could possibly want to know about the items they are interested in buying.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

This is a great addition to google Product Search. Frankly, I am not sure why they haven’t done something like this before, but that’s neither here nor there. What matters is that they are doing it now. If you couldn’t tell already, I am stoked about this. It makes a good service even better. It makes Google Product Search more usable and useful to shoppers. It helps merchants to get the information shoppers want into Google’s product services.

I will continue to post more as I find out. Remember, not all the products show the compare feature, so if you see one while searching, take a second to check it out. Look at the tabs and information, if you notice anything different, especially for different item types, let me know so I can report it here (I’ll give you credit too). So, what are you waiting for, get over to Google Product Search and start shopping.

There was a post yesterday afternoon on the Google Base blog announcing the re-introduction of the model_number attribute. Model numbers are similar to the MPN (manufacturers part number) or UPC (Universal Product Code) data feed attributes.

Model numbers are basically unique numbers or codes that get assigned to a particular product by the item manufacturer. Some of the attributes are required, some are not. The model_number attribute is optional, but it is a good idea to include it within your data feed so Google can see even more information about the products you offer. Product attributes are primarily used to help classify different items and to help shoppers find what you offer. Remember, just because you include extra attributes doesn’t always mean you will rank higher in Google Product Search or Base results, including the Onebox area.

In case you aren’t already familiar with Base attributes, here’s a list (with links) to the required, optional and item specific attributes…

Base Upload Program Policies:

• It’s always a good idea to review the Google Base Program Policies

Required Attributes (All Products):

• product_type
• brand
• title
• description
• price
• image_link
• link
• id
• mpn
• upc
• isbn
• condition
• expiration_date

Optional or Custom Attributes (All Products):

• quantity
• model_number
• payment_accepted
• payment_notes
• price_type
• shipping
• pickup
• tax_region
• tax_percent

Specific Item Type Attributes (View Attribute List Links), click [+]‘s:

Each specific item type has its own list, click “View Attribute List Links” above to see attribute specifics.

• Apparel (color, department, made_in, material, size, style)
• Books (author, binding, edition, genre, pages, publisher)
• Consumer Electronics: Cell Phones (color, functions, height, length, tech_spec_link, width, wireless_interface)
• Consumer Electronics: Computers (battery_life, capacity, color, height, length, operating_system, optical_drive, processor_speed, recommended_usage, screen_size, tech_spec_link, weight, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Digital Cameras (color, focus_type, height, length, megapixels, resolution, tech_spec_link, width, zoom)
• Consumer Electronics: Monitors (aspect_ratio, color, display_type, height, length, resolution, screen_size, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: MP3 Players (capacity, color, functions, height, length, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Printers (color, color_output, functions, height, length, memory_card_slot, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Televisions (aspect_ratio, color, display_type, height, length, resolution, screen_size, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Video Cameras and Camcorders (color, height, length, screen_size, tech_spec_link, weight, width, zoom)
• Consumer Electronics: Washers (capacity, color, height, length, load_type, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Other (color, height, length, tech_spec_link, width)
• Home and Garden: Furniture (artist, department, feature, height, length, made_in, width)
• Home and Garden: Kitchen Appliances (capacity, height, installation, length, made_in, width)
• Home and Garden: Rugs (feature, length, made_in, material, width)
• Home and Garden: Other (department, height, length, made_in, width)
• Jewelry (artist, department, material, occasion, style)
• Music (artist, edition, format, genre)
• Movies (actor, director, format, genre, rating, year)
• Shoes (color, department, heel_height, made_in, material, shoe_width, size, style)
• Toys (age_range, made_in)
• Video and PC Games (genre, platform, rating)

There are many attributes to keep track of and update, especially if you offer any of the specific item types like consumer electronics or home and garden products. Keep this list handy and check the Google attributes page often so you can offer up the best feed possible. It is very important to choose the correct product_type to begin with, that way you know which attributes to use (both required and custom) for your data feed.

Ok folks, so this is THE interview of interviews and the one I have been wanting to do so badly I could taste it! My main goal when originally starting these CSE interviews was to provide merchant numbers, product numbers, portal goals and other information to help sellers pick and choose which marketplaces to list their products with. In order to accomplish my goal, it is imperative that I get interviews from ALL the CSE’s, including the BIG guys like Google, Yahoo and Live.com shopping engines. The reason I am so happy to get this interview, other than the fact that Google gave me the time of day, is that this QandA with Google completes two of the three big interviews I need (Live seems to always be last in search, but I will continue to try them).

Google Base is a content destination marketplace where users can upload and submit all kinds of their content to be published on several Google services, including Google Product Search and their Onebox results, for products. Google Base users can describe their content through attributes, which help Google to display relevant results when related searches are performed across Google Search and other services.

Google Base is considered to be one of the most popular product classifieds or listing sites in the World and continues to improve their services, tools and documentation in an effort to achieve their vision of making eCommerce, as a whole, faster and more convenient for both buyers and sellers. One of the best things about Base is that it’s FREE and easy for content providers to use. Google also accepts multiple forms of content uploads including Web form, XML, PDF, Microsoft Excel, Text, HTML, Rich Text Format or Word. Currently, Base is only available in English and German interfaces, but is expected to expand in the future.

Official Google Base & Product Search Blog:

• Official blog… http://googlebase.blogspot.com/

The Google Base Blog is where I personally go for the latest updates, news, feature releases and team commentary. It’s a great place to see how Base and Product Search have evolved, including back when Froogle was the official Google product search brand. Data feeds and the world of comparison shopping are always changing, many don’t realize how important it is to stay current on all engine requirements, attribute announcements and other related information that affects how your feeds as a whole or even individual product listings perform. It’s a good idea to subscribe to the blog feed, if you haven’t already.

Google Base & Product Search Help Sections:

• About Base section… http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=59260&hl=en

Another great place to find out more detailed information about Google Base is their official about section. It’s basically a portal style page that organizes all the different sections that contain helpful information for webmasters, merchants and even shoppers interested in learning more about Google Base. The main about Base page contains a brief rundown and links of what Base is, frequently asked questions, screenshots and even some interesting quick facts including cost, reach, how to submit and what makes Base unique.

• About Product Search section… http://www.google.com/products/intl/en_us/about.html

The Google Base about, help and discussion sections all have information related to Google Product Search as well, but there is also an official about section with more Product Search specifics (it is mostly how users are directed to Base from Product Search, but still has good information). The Product Search about page basically covers what it is and gives users more answers to frequently asked questions such as how to include your items and information about the sponsored results.

• Help center… http://base.google.com/support/

For specific information and help with Google Base uploading, technical information and specifications I prefer their thorough and well documented help center. The help center features useful information and links to detail pages of Base topics including help for getting started, managing your account, how to create or post items and even how to troubleshoot common Base issues. There is also some information about Base and Product Search results pages and links directly to the top 5 Base questions.

• Help discussion… http://groups.google.com/group/base-help-discussion

In addition to the Base blog, about pages, help center and FAQ sections, there is one additional place I go for information and help. The Google Base Group has been in existence for quite some time now and the discussion topics cover anything and everything you could possibly want to ask about or discuss with other Base users. Google Base’s Help Group categories include discussions about common roadblocks, the basics, submitting data, search results, user ideas and even Google Base and Checkout usage chat.

Cynthia Kwon Answers 10 Questions About Google Base:

Roughly how many merchants are included within Google Base?

The number of merchants is continuously changing, so it’s hard to say exactly how many are in Google Base.

Roughly how many products are included within Google Base?

This number is changing all of the time, so it’s hard to say exactly how many products are included in Google Base.

Roughly how many individuals currently work on Google Base support and coding teams?

As a matter of policy, Google doesn’t disclose team sizes.

What other places across the Internet, if any, are merchants and products included?

We know most Google users start their searches from the Google.com homepage. We provide merchant and product information directly in those search results. We also provide merchant and product information in Google Product Search (www.google.com/products).

What, in your opinion, are the highlight features Google Base offers it’s users?

Google Base is a service designed for content providers, but it benefits users. Google Base gives content providers a free and easy way to make all kinds of content — from real estate information, to job listings, to recipes — searchable on Google.com. All of this information improves the overall quality and breadth of Google Search results for our users, and it helps them connect with the specific information they are looking for.

What, in your opinion are the highlight features Google Base offers merchants?

Google Base helps merchants expose their products to Google users. It enables content owners to describe and assign attributes to the information they upload, and then Google uses this meta-data to better target search results to what users are looking for.

Are new features being added and updated often? How often would you say?

As with other Google products, we are continuously innovating and adding new features to Google Base.

How does Google Base plan to stay competitive with sites like Amazon and eBay marketplaces?

Google wants to make e-commerce, as a whole, faster and more convenient for buyers and for sellers. This means helping buyers throughout the entire process – from searching for products, to finding the most specific items on the web and submitted through Google Base, and then giving them the option to buy in a secure and trusted way through Google Checkout.

Where do you see Google Base in the next 3-5 years?

Google’s goal is to connect users to the most relevant information, whether it’s online or offline information. While we can’t project what will happen in the future, Google Base has been an important part of that process.

What Online product marketplaces, other than Google Base, do you personally use to shop from?

eBay and Amazon and a select number of other merchants but I always start first with Google.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Cynthia: Thanks so much for taking the time to participate in our QandA Cynthia! I am glad to see Google playing such an active role in reaching out and taking time to inform their users about specific products or services like Base and Product Search. Some things I really like about these search products are how simplistic to use they are (for merchants or shoppers) and, of course, that you can list items on either for free. I can’t wait until things evolve a little more with some of the technology and other similar services like Google Checkout, it will be interesting for me to see how Google blends them all together in their efforts to organize eCommerce. Again, thanks for the insights you have provided our readers and myself, please don’t hesitiate to reach out to us again in the future, I would love to continue spreading the word about Google Base and Product Search services.

About Cynthia Kwon: Currently, Cynthia is a part of the Strategic Partner Development team at Google. She heads up the partnership efforts for Google Base and the product search initiative. Her mission is to work with leading retail and technology companies in order to provide the best product search experience for Google users.

Prior to Google, Cynthia was an investment associate at Focus Ventures, an expansion stage venture capital firm. During her tenure, she helped lead the investment efforts for the enterprise software and security sectors. In addition, Cynthia has held posts in both marketing and business development for a number of Silicon Valley start-up companies.

Cynthia holds a Bachelor of Science from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

To Meghan: In a way, completing this interview makes me sad Meg, now that it is all wrapped up I don’t get to bug you anymore! Seriously though, thanks so much for all you did to make this QandA with Cynthia happen for eCommerce Optimization. Really, without you I don’t think I would be writing this right now and I certainly wouldn’t be as close to completing my over 100 CSE interviews as this one makes me. I am sorry for bugging you all those times and I really appreciate you updating me along the way, it makes me happy to see that sometimes Google doesn’t forget about the B-list bloggers. Thanks again Meg. If there’s ever anything I can do for you in return, don’t hesitiate to ask me.

To our readers: I hope you all enjoyed this interview with Cynthia Kwon about Google Base and Product Search. If you feel like thanking her for participating, please leave her a comment and let Base know what you think. There’s also a feedback form, if you would rather do it that way. If this is the first eCommerce Optimization interview you have read, be sure to check out all the others in our interviews section. If you liked this interview and don’t want to miss out on the next one, you should subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send the content to you!

Google Base is Featured as one of the product classifieds sites on our Product Listing Guide!
Google Product Search is Featured as one of the comparison engines on our Product Listing Guide!

TheFind.com is now out of BETA!! Congratulations to everyone who helped test it.

TheFind.com, a comparison shopping engine, is due to make several big announcements tomorrow starting with the addition of four new and innovative shopping features to more methods meant to improve how TheFind discovers and indexes new eCommerce stores or new merchant products.

We have posted about TheFind.com several times in the past, including the exclusive interview we conducted with their CEO, Siva Kumar and their acquisition of the designer fashion site, Glimpse. As one of the youngest CSE’s (about 1 year now), they are quickly becoming one of the most popular shopping destination and product comparison services currently available to consumers.

The recent features added into TheFind shopping search are designed to allow shoppers to engage in a richer, more targeted, shopping experience. The four new features are perfect for anyone looking for products to buy, but would work great for seasonal shoppers too, and come just in time for this years holiday shopping season. Check them out below and let me know what you think!

Our core belief is that our shopping search engine should give consumers access to the full scope of what is available from all the online stores, but without having to sift through hundreds of search results that don’t fit their needs. We’re continually enhancing this process for shoppers – adding new features, search categories and simple ways for them to share their finds with friends and family. Shopping online is supposed to save time and energy, especially around the holidays, and we’re here to make sure that is always the case when it comes to pinpointing the right products from the right store for each shopper.

TheFind.com Mini-Malls:

The first feature to be announced is a Mini-Mall search. It’s a new tabbed navigation that allows users to narrow results by boutiques, department stores, mall stores, major retailers and even marketplace sites like eBay, Shop.com or Amazon.

The Mini-Malls are meant for shoppers looking for distinctive gifts and who need to see products from different resources not typically found on other comparison shopping engines. They also allow shoppers to see what products are available at the major department stores and retail malls. Finally, now consumers can search quickly and easily within a specific group of stores. The Mini-Mall tabs, featured on TheFind results pages, make it easy to sort from group to group with ease.

Example Mini-Mall Results Searches…

• Boutique Search for Cashmere Scarf
• Department Store Search for Cashmere Scarf
• Retail Mall Search for Cashmere Scarf
• Marketplace Search for Cashmere Scarf

TheFind.com Virtual Shopping Districts:

Another part of the tabbed navigation introduced by TheFind is their unique Virtual Shopping Districts. They are tabs that feature results sorting options for trendy shopping destinations like Rodeo Drive or 5th and Madison in New York.

With TheFind’s new virtual destinations you can search and shop some of the hottest districts without ever leaving the comfort of your home and having to make a trip to the district you are interested in shopping at. By bringing these fashion and shopping hot spots directly to consumers across the country more consumers can buy from more exclusive retailers.

TheFind shoppers simply select the Rodeo Drive tab or the 5th and Madison tab and the products from just the retailers that have storefronts in these exclusive districts will instantly be shown within the results.

Example Virtual Shopping District Results Searches…

• Rodeo Drive Search for Cashmere Scarf
• Fifth & Madison Search for Cashmere Scarf

Product Mouse-Hovers Displaying Related Items:

In addition to the Mini-Malls featuring grouped shops and exclusive destinations, TheFind has also bulked up their product mouse-hovers to display much more than just the typical product names, descriptions and prices. The new mouse-hover product pages display related products and other items such as accessories that may accompany what the shopper is already interest in. Not only that, but the mouse-hovers also allow enough space for merchant advertisements, coupons, specials and nearly any other message or promotion the vendor may wish to display. Shoppers need only hover over a product they are interested in with their mouse and they have instant access to a variety of product information, related items and even promotional messages.

In addition, mouse-over page also features links that point directly at the sellers site. So a shopper looking at a purse may possibly see the matching shoes, necklace, earrings and bracelet, as recommended by the merchant. With the new product mouse-hovers, TheFind merchants now have a targeted location, within easy reach for shoppers, to include sale notifications and money-saving coupons.

MyFinds Recent Search and Browsing History:

The new MyFinds enhancement is designed to add personalization with a unique way for shoppers to manage their shopping lists and recent search or product history. Continuing the quest to deliver the simplest, most comprehensive and personalized shopping experience, TheFind.com will now offer even more search personalization within the expanded MyFinds bar capabilities.

There are a couple of different places where shoppers can now access their saved items and even recently viewed or recently searched for products. The MyFinds bar features thumbnails of products shoppers have recently viewed or saved. In addition to the bar at the bottom of every page and a condensed version bar on the home page, TheFind users can click through to view more recently viewed items, recently saved items and even recent search queries.

Users will now have access to and see their recent searches, recently viewed and recently saved items within the MyFinds bar, which helps to serve as a new way for shoppers to bookmark and save their favorite items without doing any work, taking extra steps or the need for several clicks away from the page you were viewing. Shoppers can basically search all they want from the beginning and save items for later just by reviewing their browsing history or saved items. Users can also email MyFinds items to their friends, family or loved ones. The enhanced search and product history feature is an ideal way for shoppers to share products and lists throughout the holidays and on into the new year.

Recent Data Numbers & Bragging Rights:

TheFind.com crawls more than 500,000 stores on the Web to find more than 200 million products across all shopping categories. Its unmatched Web search ability includes access to unique and hard-to-find boutiques, brand stores and hip, must-have products. TheFind.com’s objective approach offers shoppers search results which are ranked by natural popularity, instead of offering results influenced by paid placements.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

Wow, what an announcement from TheFind. Are those guys busy or what? I guess we know all of that venture funding is going to good use and I expect the new features to keep rolling out as we end 2007 and begin 2008. I had a chance to personally speak with TheFind’s CEO, Siva Kumar, about this announcement and future company goals. The conversation we had was both insightful and stimulating as I got to hear and participate in some very exciting and ground-breaking news straight from the source.

This is certainly one company to keep your eye on as they continue to break new ground within the comparison shopping space. With these latest feature announcements TheFind continues to set the bar very high for competing CSE’s and other product comparison marketplaces.

Pronto.com recently made a couple of big announcements regarding their comparison shopping engine and social shopping community. The first is the addition of brand new product buying guides into their social community. The new guides are supposed to compliment features that are already included in the social shopping sections. The other announcement involves a contest Pronto is having called the Holiday Shopping Contest where contestants have a chance to win $2,000 in products from Pronto.com.

Here’s what Michelle Pae, Pronto’s Vice President of Product Development, had to say…

What makes Pronto.com unique to the industry is our focus not only on helping consumers find where they can buy certain products, but also in giving them the information they need to decide what to buy. This is especially useful during the holiday season. With our new Buying Guides and thriving social shopping community, we’ve assembled critical buying information from across the Web into one convenient place to make shopping easy and fun.

Pronto’s New Product Buying Guides:

Just in time for the holidays, Pronto has released their new product buying guides in order to compliment their already feature rick social shopping community. The Buying Guides provide the perfect amount of information for a number of different products including reviews, unbiased advice and helpful, category-specific facts, so Online shoppers can make educated buying decisions without having to become an expert on the items they want to buy.

This is a good move on Pronto’s end as a recent study conducted by Burst Media found that nearly half of consumer shoppers expect to purchase either a portion or all of their holiday gifts Online this year (50.7%), up from 37.6% in 2006. In addition to data about how much consumers buy Online during the holidays, the study also found that more than two-thirds (68.6%) of consumers shop Online and use the Net as a primary resource for product research. These new Buying Guides should pave the way as more to help shoppers dramatically reduce the time they spend Online shopping by providing them with the information they need to pick the perfect gift for any occasion or member of the family.

Currently, there are dozens of Pronto buying guides to shop from, with more being added each day. The guides do a nice job of covering products across many popular categories including baby, home and garden, electronics and entertainment. To access the Pronto Buying Guides, users only need to click on the links below the ‘Need Advice?’ column near the top right of each page once a product or category search has been performed.

Once a buying guide has been selected, customers will find the following information…

• The Pronto Pick –The recommended product in the category based on quality and value
• The Five – Five key points the shopper should keep in mind
• Shop Talk – Product-specific terms and descriptions that consumers should know
• Buzz – What’s hot right now
• Wallet Impact – What consumers can expect within their designated price range
• Experts Say – Additional opinions and advice from the experts

It makes me happy to see all the success Pronto has gained over the past year. They are really making big moves at the right times in the industry and should be used as an example of what to do when launching a new product or service Online. Pronto boasts that they are the Web’s fastest growing comparison shopping engine (CSE) with year-over-year growth of over 3100% and 5.2 million unique monthly U.S. users (according to comScore). Pronto is also the first site to have successfully fused comparison shopping with a full range of social shopping features that allow their users to rate products, interact with other members, write reviews and discover new products, brands or stores from other like-minded shoppers.

Pronto’s Holiday Shopping Contest:

Other big news at Pronto includes a holiday shopping contest they are having called, Pronto.com’s ‘Want It, Win It’ Holiday Shopping Contest, in which one Pronto.com user will have a chance to win $2,000-worth of their favorite products. The holiday sweepstakes will run from November 15th to December 15th, 2007. The sweepstakes winner will be selected by random drawing on December 20th and will win $2,000-worth of products off of their ‘Like’ list. To enter the sweepstakes, simply create a profile and ‘Like’ five of your favorite or most-wanted products, write five reviews, and invite five of your friends to join you on Pronto.com.

Be sure to read the Official Contest Rules, there are also Help Instructions.