IndustryShopping Search Week 2004!

Shopping Search Week 2004!

Shopping has emerged as one of the most important vertical categories in the specialized search arena, for searchers, advertisers and merchants alike. This week we take a look at what's new and improved in shopping and product comparison search engines.

Shopping has emerged as one of the most important vertical categories in the specialized search arena, for searchers, advertisers and merchants alike. This week we take a look at what’s new and improved in shopping and product comparison search engines.

According to market research firm Hitwise, the market share of visits to the top comparison shopping sites increased by 22% this year, taking this market share directly from the major general purpose search engines. What accounts for the surging popularity of the shopping search sites? “Users are becoming more sophisticated,” said Bill Tancer, vice president of research at Hitwise.

While this is clearly a major factor in the increasing popularity of shopping search, new features and content offered by the services, as well as increasingly sophisticated promotional and merchandising options for retailers also play a key role. Shopping search services have largely become one-stop portals for researching products, finding bargains and selecting merchants to buy from.

“I think it marks a whole new shift in the way people are shopping online,” said Tancer.

Shopping Search Leaders

Just how much traffic are shopping search sites receiving? Hitwise estimates that visits to the top comparison shopping sites accounted for 5% of US visits to all shopping and classifieds web sites for the week ending November 20, 2004. This amounted to 0.4% of total Internet traffic, a huge amount for a specialized search category.

According to Hitwise, the leaders in the shopping search category in the U.S. are:

  1. Yahoo Shopping
  2. BizRate
  3. Shopping.com
  4. NexTag
  5. PriceGrabber
  6. MSN eShop
  7. Calibex (owned by NexTag)
  8. Froogle
  9. Dealtime (owned by Shopping.com)
  10. Price Watch
  11. Shopzilla (BizRate’s new name/service)

Hitwise’s numbers do not always agree with estimates from other measurement services such as comScore Networks and Nielsen//NetRatings. Each shopping search site trumpets the traffic numbers that show its own service in the most favorable light.

Nonetheless, clear leaders have emerged, and the Hitwise rankings give a good indicator of who they are.

A Big Holiday Season Predicted

According to Jupiter Research, online holiday sales will reach $21.6 billion in 2004, a 19 percent increase over sales during the same period in 2003. Jupiter says that most consumers use the Internet when holiday gift shopping to get gift ideas, seek low prices, and plan their budget. All of the major online shopping services provide ready, easy to use tools for accomplishing these goals.

What do people buy online? In addition to traditional online favorites like books, music and electronics, comScore Networks says that the fastest growing categories are:

  • Jewelry & Watches, $739 million, a 67% increase over last year
  • Furniture, Appliances & Equipment $1.7 billion, a 58% increase over last year
  • Computer Software (ex. PC Games), $1.2 billion, a 43% increase over last year
  • Flowers, Greetings & Misc Gifts, $1.1 billion, a 43% increase over last year
  • Home & Garden, $14 billion, a 28% increase over last year

An Emerging Trend: Search Locally, Buy Locally

While the major shopping search engines all tend to focus on online retailers, a new type of shopping search is emerging that’s a compelling alternative for many people. These services let you search for local bricks and mortar retailers that carry the products you’re looking for.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Mylene Mangalindan describes this new trend in Internet Shopping … in Person. The new services are particularly appealing for bulky or difficult to ship items such as cars, furniture, electronics, computers, pets and so on. A few notable services:

LiveDeal.com
http://www.livedeal.com

LiveDeal is free to both buyers and sellers. The service has listings from both established merchants as well as individuals, effectively serving as an alternative to local classified ads in many cases.

LiveDeal offers a number of optional services for merchants such as enhanced listings, featured categories and so on. The site also offers a bulk upload tool for merchants with many product offerings.

ShopLocal
http://www.shoplocal.com/

ShopLocal is available on more than 150 of the nation’s most popular newspaper sites, portals and shopping sites, and directly via ShopLocal.com

Merchants can learn more about ShopLocal’s services by filling out a request for information form.

StepUp.com
http://www.stepup.com

StepUp.com allows you to search for a product and then have the option of buying the product online or from a physical store in your vicinity.

For merchants, StepUp.com offers a free Member Store Program that lets you list products regardless of whether you have a web site.

ClickZ’s Pamela Parker has more about StepUp.com: Start-Up Steps Up to Local Product Search Challenge.

Online yellow pages providers are also getting into the shopping search game. Last week, Verizon launched an enhanced version of its Superpages web site, with shopping search provided by Shopping.com, in addition to an eBay search and Verizon’s own customized product and services search powered by FAST.

Other online yellow pages providers also offer shopping search options, though at this point, most are tepid compared to the dedicated shopping search portals. Stay tuned, though—next year I expect the shopping search space to have evolved considerably.

Shopping Search Week

Here’s the lineup for this week:

Monday: Shopping Search 2004 Overview
Tuesday: Shopping Search Update 2004, Part 1
Wednesday: Shopping Search Update 2004, Part 2
Thursday: Shopping Search Around the World

New to the world of shopping search? Check out Shopping Search Engines at Search Engine Watch for more information and links to all of our articles on these product search and comparison services.

Want to discuss or comment on this story? Join the Shopping Search Arrives as an Important Vertical discussion in the Search Engine Watch forums.

Search Headlines

NOTE: Article links often change. In case of a bad link, use the publication’s search facility, which most have, and search for the headline.

Ever Widening Search
Rocky Mountain News Nov 29 2004 9:46AM GMT
Brannock files keyword lawsuit
Central New York Business Journal Nov 28 2004 12:41PM GMT
Snap.com search engine arrives with innovations
The Pasadena Star News Nov 28 2004 12:40PM GMT
Name that tune — then find it with GoFish
SiliconValley.com Nov 27 2004 9:29PM GMT
New Singingfish Beta Web Site Online
Search Engine Watch Nov 27 2004 4:07PM GMT
Australia’s Ansearch to hatch competitor to Google
ITworld.com Nov 27 2004 2:42AM GMT
As Search History Develops, an Implication or Two
Searchblog Nov 27 2004 2:41AM GMT
Crossing the Line with Advertising in RSS Feeds?
Jeremy Zawodny’s Blog Nov 26 2004 4:12PM GMT
SES Chicago Trends
Alan Meckler’s Weblog Nov 26 2004 4:07PM GMT
First Reports on Google Desktop Downloads
Search Engine Watch Blog Nov 26 2004 4:06PM GMT
Preserving digital data a tough job
Contra Costa Times Nov 26 2004 1:40PM GMT
New Tools Added to Jeeves UK
Revolution Nov 25 2004 4:32PM GMT
Commerce One patent sale has Google worried
ZDNet UK Nov 25 2004 9:32AM GMT
Impeachment? I found it on Google says Plaid MP behind idea
Guardian Unlimited Nov 25 2004 8:04AM GMT
Creative Commons Search Engine Integrated into Firefox 1.0
Search Engine Journal Nov 25 2004 2:58AM GMT

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