Comparison shopping website

A price comparison portal is a site that is available on the consumer to a desired product several online shops on one side, to compare their price.

Classification

In contrast to price Agencies Internet price comparisons for online users usually work for free. They are financed by advertising. Mainly through commissions and the advertised online shops The commission models pay per click, pay per sale and pay per lead are the most common.

Of the over 1000 price comparison portals in Germany, most so-called " white label price comparison portals ." That the data base is not derived by the portal operator, but from a provider. This white label price comparison portals are often used within portal sites with great community.

Internet price comparisons has been around for over ten years. For some years there are meta search engines to search and price for price comparison or price comparison software. Furthermore, some price comparison websites are now offering in addition to the pure price comparison a the user profile corresponding ranking of online stores that depict not only the price, especially the ability to deliver, user opinions and reviews of quality, environmental sustainability and safety.

In addition to general price comparisons, compare the products of a variety of different product categories, there are specialized price comparison portals, each of which compare only provider of a marketplace such as computers, electronics or drugs and for then use often more extensive special parameters for comparison.

While price comparisons are mostly related to products in online stores, compare the offers so-called product search engines stationary retailers. This channel is increasingly used by stores as an additional channel alongside the range flyer distribution.

Technology

One way to price information to collect, this read directly from the dealer. These are then compared with the database of the comparison service. The adjustment requires a mix of information extraction, fuzzy logic, and human judgment to the association.

An alternative approach are Web crawlers seek price information directly from the provider and feed it into a database. This data can also be picked up at the will of the dealer. Often a combination of these methods is used.

Mobile applications

Mobile applications have increased with the advent of the smartphones of the younger generation greatly. WAP applications or SMS services were too few customer-friendly and therefore were never widely used. Basically, help quick and easy -to-use applications the breakthrough, as the customer is willing little typing much information. Therefore, using the recent price comparison products mobile tagging. The smartphone camera is used to scan the image information.

Collective search

Unlike price comparison portals that are mainly used for the comparison of products, there is a second group, the rate comparison portals. The use of these portals is limited to any structures of everyday life such as electricity rates, gas rates, Internet rates or insurance.

The function of the rate comparison portals to be an interface between the consumer and the provider. The portals take the part of the seller and give the supposedly best rates from tariff after a search. Now chooses the consumer for a new tariff and trusts the judgment of the portal, the relevant tariff comparison site receives a commission for referring.

Since the number of different portals, whether it is quite large for products or tariffs, it pays to always use multiple portals for consumers. It also advise the consumer centers. The reason is often different discount agreements comparison portals with the respective portal.

Criticism

For users, it is not always transparent, the source from which the prices come or how current and objective they are. Many comparison websites use relatively old data and present also sometimes the prices of paying customers above, which leads to considerable price distortions. This is in doubt whether such comparisons can actually still be objective. An objective price comparison is already problematic because many stores change their prices in the days running several times and in some cases drastically. This happens for example by automatic Mitbewerbsbeobachtung and computer-controlled adjustment of daily trends. Such short-term changes are not detected by the comparison portals usually. The consumer gets to price comparison portals, however, suggests that he could actually find here the best price.

Another point of criticism is that online shops ask for sometimes very different to shipping and in many price comparison portals these shipping costs are not always immediately apparent. A Supreme Court ruling of 16 July 2009, I ZR 140/ 07, counteracts this and demands in price comparison lists, which are basically Rankings, a transparent presentation of shipping costs incurred.

Serious offers are hardly affected by this criticism, since they present the customer with the current hours, or at least today's final price. This already included current exchange rates, shipping costs, etc. This makes comparisons, however, very time-consuming and often especially needed when the shipping costs of cooperation with the listed stores. Another very important criterion is the independence and neutrality of price comparisons. As these get the revenue from the shops usually, but this is problematic: It raises the same problem as rating agencies: The customer must be rated neutral, the same one is in revenue on instructed him. It is important, therefore, that a price comparison has strong directives on equal treatment, and also offers market-relevant party lists, not have to pay for the recording.

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