Shopzilla - Comparison Shopping
Shopzilla.com has been in the comparison shopping biz since 1996. Today, Shopzilla gets millions of visitors each month and still growing. In fact, Shopzilla is a top 50 U.S. Web property. Check out the press center for more about Shopzilla.
This comparison engine allows shoppers to quickly and easily find, compare, and buy anything, sold by anyone (anyone that pays to list their products). By looking at the homepage, you can see the emphasis on “search” with that gigantic box, but there is still a small menu off to the right and recent trends below.
The Results
Shopzilla’s search result pages are okay in my opinion. I do like the adjustable price range meter and the ability to drill down by subcategory. My only problem is with the length of the product descriptions. For me as a shopper I want to get as much information about a product as possible as quickly as possible and with the limited descriptions, I’m forced to click more. I also like when the “compare stores” button is available rather than the “go to store”, because it allows you to compare prices across a variety of merchants on a single page (much easier to read). I don’t see this too often any more:( This was a great tool for merchants who offered lower prices than their competitor. Here is a sample search result page:
Top Searches
Shopzilla provides some transparency into their search data. Take a look at the top searches on Shopzilla. If you are selling any of those products or target any of those keywords then this data can be useful. Watch for trends to emerge and take advantage. Google Trends is good for this too.
Creating An Account
Creating an account is free and easy. With a free membership you can:
- Have your website listed in their directory of online stores
- Participate in the Customer Certified Ratings & Review Program
- Gain access to the Merchant Services Website
- PPC advertising is available for products (Not Free)
Data Feed Facts
- Shopzilla title character limit: 100 characters max
- Shopzilla description character limit: 1000 character max
- Accepted File Format: ASCII tab-delimited text file
- There are 15 required fields in the data feed.
- Upload through ftp or web interface
- Download a sample datafeed (.xls)
- Download the Shopzilla data feed spec sheet
- After you register you will gain access to more merchant resources to help you
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