Google introduced a new Commerce Search tool for retailers on Wednesday to try to make the online shopping experience easier for consumers as the holidays approach.
According to Google, Web users spend an "average of just eight seconds" on a retail site before deciding whether to stay. With that in mind, Commerce Search aims to improve search on retailers' individual sites.
With Commerce Search, shoppers can sort data by "category, price, brand, or any other attribute," Google said. Retailers can also offer special attention for specific products to draw consumer attention. The tool includes built-in spell-check and synonyms to help ensure people find the items they're looking for, regardless of how they spell or identify products.
Commerce Search will be hosted in the cloud. The cost to retailers is based on the number of products and the searches conducted annually.
If you want to start buying groceries online, we have five sites for you to try out. Few of them are designed well and a couple require up to five days to actually get your groceries. When it comes to buying groceries online, the experience is far from perfect. But I think you might find value in some of these options.
The wide world of groceries
Amazon's grocery store, while still in beta, is designed well. Finding groceries takes just a few seconds. Adding goods to your shopping cart mimics the familiar Amazon experience. And prices are usually better than at my local supermarket. That said, I did find some better deals at wholesale brick-and-mortar stores, like BJ's and Costco.
Delivery is a major concern for most online grocery shoppers. That's where Amazon really shines. Amazon offers its "Free Super Saver" shipping on most products. You'll get your delivery in five to seven days. You can also get bulk items like paper towels in three to five business days with free shipping. If you want your groceries sooner, you'll be forced to pay for it, but Amazon can accommodate just about any time frame you require.
The Amazon grocery shopping experience is convenient, simple, and affordable. I highly recommend it.
I was generally impressed with AulSuperStore's inventory of groceries. Almost anything you search for will be on the site. But beware that some products I came across were sold out--something I never saw on Amazon. Prices were competitive, but they didn't quite match Amazon's pricing.
Delivery is the biggest issue facing AulSuperStore. You can't expedite shipping. If you're in Upstate New York, New York City, or New Jersey, you'll get your groceries in one day. But if you're in California, don't expect them for at least four days. Such a rigid delivery system will probably turn some people off.
AulSuperStore, while competitive on prices, isn't competitive on anything else. I don't recommend it if you live outside of New York or New Jersey.
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Nobody likes to find a good deal that ends up being a bad one because of exorbitant shipping costs. In the jungle of online retailers indexed in Google's Product Search (formerly Froogle), nothing is more common. To solve that problem, Google has begun a voluntary program for retailers to include their shipping and tax information so that potential buyers can see what the total cost will be before clicking.
The new system runs through Google's Base product, letting retailers note whether they charge tax. It's also set up to let them set tax and shipping amounts by location so that the price will change based on where the searcher is from.
On most deal sites like Slickdeals or Fatwallet you'll see people work this out on their own--Google is just taking that extra step out of the equation, which could make it even easier to find a good deal without surprises. As an addendum to this feature, I would love Google to cross-reference its product index with a rebate index to let you save that much more on bargain goods.
I've mentioned in the past that I'm a frequent Slickdeals and Fatwallet user. The two are must-bookmark sites if you want to stay abreast on big savings for consumer electronics. Newcomer BeatThat might be more lucrative to deal submitters though, the voracious group of users that feeds these sites with the best deals. BeatThat is trying to woo people like this away from those sites with something a little more useful than community cred--cash.
The site is paying users up to $2 per deal on an item that's lower in price than any pulled in by its price-grabbing engine. Competitor Pricegrabber has been doing this for years, but has offered no way for users to add their own links to the mix.
To avoid gaming the system, each deal must be verified for users to get paid. There are also some strict stipulations meant to level the playing field, like requiring the item to be in stock for a minimum amount of time, as well as any special coupon codes that go with it. Products must also be new, and the retailers must accept credit card payments--all things that might keep you from getting a big deal on refurbished and factory-restored products; the typical deals site fare.
To compare BeatThat's results, I did a product search on five popular products: the Canon Powershot SD1100is, a popular Sony HDTV, an iPod Nano (8GB black), a Garmin nüvi 350, and a popular HP desktop printer, then compared the top result against that of Pricegrabber and Google's Product search engine.
To my surprise, BeatThat's engine came out on top nearly every time. Included are all the usual things like retailer ratings and a final cost, which factors in things like local taxes and shipping. What makes the system a step up from the others is that you can rank a deal with a vote up or down, similar to Slickdeal's rep system that promotes items to the front page. BeatThat's engine works the same way, although manages to add in an editor's picks section, too.
Despite the low prices, there are some things missing from BeatThat that I'd like to see added. For instance there are no tie-ins with product reviews--neither professional or amateur. Also, while you can rank a deal, you can't actually rate the item itself. Missing too are some important categories like software and video game hardware.
Current shortcomings aside, BeatThat is a compelling entrant to the deals market and definitely worth bookmarking if you're doing an online product search. Combined with something like Retrevo that gives you a metacritical score, and RetailMeNot which maintains its coupon code database, and you've got a pretty good state of mind going into a three- of four-digit purchase.
BeatThat gives you the lowest prices by rank. Missing however are things like product reviews from professionals and consumers.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
I love things that save me money when shopping online. While PriceGrabber and Google Shopping are my two go-to sites for finding the lowest prices on electronics, tons of sites track prices and give the heads-up when something goes on sale or gets its price reduced.
There's also PriceAdvance, a browser plug-in that will pull up competing prices from other online sellers automatically whenever you hit a page with a product and price on it. Its latest iteration for Firefox and IE doubles the number of prices it shows you compared with the previous version.
Right now it only works on 16 major online retailers including heavyweights like Amazon.com, Buy.com, and Wal-Mart. For non-supported sites I'd recommend going with a service like Retrevo (review), which pulls in the prices throughout the day and includes a listing of product manuals--just in case you don't feel like hunting around for the spec sheet.
I've embedded a demo of it in action below.
Other cool price tools:
Use the Web to watch for price drops
Pricepinx intelligently watches for price drops online
Tjoos: Somewhat smarter shopping
I've looked at a handful of price watching services, but this one has got to be the coolest. It's called Pricepinx, and it's been designed to work on any site--not just some of the big retailers.
All you have to do to get going is add a small bookmarklet to your browser, highlight the price of the item and click on the bookmarklet. If there are any changes in price, you'll be notified by e-mail. As an added bonus for those who register with the service, added items are pooled together in a list. You can also sign on as a guest user and get any updates to whichever e-mail address you specify.
Besides individual pricing, the service is a hive-mind for tagged sale items. Each Pricepinx item that's added to your list also goes public, and the biggest droppers and most added items are served up in individual lists you can browse and use to hunt for deals.
The one major snag I can foresee with this tool is companies changing page designs, or not picking up on potentially important limited time rebate information that's not reflected in the total cost. The example I've picked below is Newegg, which frequently offers product rebates that might not always be reflected in the list price, but that can potentially save you a lot of cash. Pricepinx also doesn't work with some sites that dynamically generate pricing based on location, or any of the Gap Web sites.
Related: Use the Web to watch for price drops
[via Lifehacker via The Red Ferret Journal]
Say you want to track this price--now you can with Pricepinx, just by highlighting the digits you want to track and clicking on the bookmarklet that's been added to your browser's toolbar.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Shopify, which serves up do-it-yourself sales pages to sell your all sorts of items (including your junk, as Rafe experimented with in his hands-on) launched an interesting new feature this week called Marketplace. It links up people's Shopify stores to a central index that can be searched, sorted, and browsed by anyone and everyone. Owners of each Shopify store must opt-in to the program to be included, in the hopes of selling an item, or being discovered through the centralized directory. Shopify is also releasing an API in the coming weeks that will let developers tap into the new data stream with their own apps. There's already a widget for Apple's Dashboard that serves as an example of what you can do.
The search experience itself is lightweight and easy on the eyes. Results can be sorted by tags, product type, and the vendor--which is helpful because items tend to get lumped together. Each item has its own photo and short description, along with links to the parent store.
Of course you're not going to find nearly the scope of items that you'd find compared to services like Google product search, or established classified listings like Craigslist or eBay, but keep in mind that Shopify is indexing a list of about 20,000 smaller shops, and many of the offerings are niche.
If you've got a Shopify shop online, you can now have it made searchable for others to see by Shopify Marketplace.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Price Protectr is a service that monitors online stores and alerts you to any changes in price within 30 days of buying a product. If it sounds simple it is, and frankly that's the way it should be.
Nobody likes finding out they could have saved money if they had paid attention to price drops, but it's easier said than done. Price Protectr does the work for you. All you have to do is give them the URL of the product you bought and your e-mail, and it will keep an eye on it for 30 days. If there's ever a change, you get an e-mail alerting you to the fact.
Price Protectr doesn't work with every online store. In fact right now it only works with ten of the major online retailers, and only for the United States and some of Canada. Nonetheless, it's a simple solution to the simple problem of human laziness. See also RefundPlease.
[via Del.icio.us]
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