Next Generation Shopping

Yesterday Frucall announced that it now allows users to compare prices from a mobile phone drawing information from both Amazon and Yahoo! Shopping.

“Shoppers who are not at a computer can call 1-888-DO-FRUCALL (888-378-7467) and type in or read the product’s barcode. Frucall will search the product on both Yahoo! Shopping and Amazon, and will give users the three best advertised prices. Shoppers use a voice menu to “bookmark'’ items, leave themselves voice notes for later reference, listen to customer ratings, and soon purchase the product from an online vendor. Shoppers can register at http://www.frucall.com to personalize their Frucall experience and access more valuable features.”

I knew that it was only a matter of time before a service like this was established. It is a great usage of the data and web services from by Amazon and Yahoo! Shopping. Only time will tell if phsyical retail shoppers adapt to it. I have yet to test this service, so a followup will come shortly. In the meantime, read the full article here.

Technorati Tags: amazon api, yahoo shopping, frucall, m-commerce, mobile shopping

Yesterday ShopWiki announced a mobile version of their site. Right from their press release:

“ShopWiki, the complete shopping search engine and buying guide, today announced the launch of its mobile service, available on Web-enabled mobile devices at http://m.shopwiki.com/. ShopWiki Mobile Search (beta) allows shoppers to quickly compare online product pricing or research product information before making an in-store purchase.”

This continues with the trend of online e-commerce engines realizing the potential needs of in-store shoppers. As a side note, I couldn’t get the site to load on my new Razor phone… Not sure if it was my phone or the site, oh well!

Brian Smith over at ComparisonEngines.com is attending Google Press Day. He mentioned a resource, amonst others, on his blog that Google is releasing called Google Trends. I did a few e-commerce related searches on it to give it a try… Then a quick search for “Mobile Shopping” immediately caught my attention. Here is what the City-based breakdown looks like:

Look at that… The majority of search is coming from India. Other cities have much less search volume, and no US city is even in the top 10. I then recalled reading somewhere recently about the importance of mobile commerce in India… Oh yes, eBay just launched eBay.in Affiliate Program, now I remember. Directly from their May 2006 newsletter:

“As internet entrepreneurs, India and the eBay.in Affiliate Program represents an attractive global opportunity to website publishers. India, with a population of approximately 1.1 billion, and with just over 39% internet penetration, represents a large opportunity for affiliates. eCommerce is exploding in this English-speaking, technologically sophisticated market. One thing to consider: mobile applications and SMS are vital components of internet usage in India.”

My first time reading it I was thinking yeah, yeah. Now I’m thinking up how to get in the game!

Final Note: While the trend data from Google appears to be very useful, although my experience with it has been short to this point, it is also important to note the discrepancies between similiar keywords such as “price comparison” and “comparison shopping”. It can give you a good idea of what different regions and cultures refer to similiar terms as, which may be important in your SEO or SEM campaign. Using it in conjunction with the Overture keyword tool, and WordTracker could become a very powerful combination.

Technorati Tags: mobile shopping, mobile commerce, eBay India, google trends, SEO

Does having Google Ads help your site with indexing and rankings? Maybe a kind of a you help me, I’ll help you thing going on? At first it seemed a little strange to me, but who knows anymore… My question is:

Is there any benefit, in rank or indexing, for running Google Adwords?

Earlier I reported that some people noticed Googlebot was found to be working in conjunction with Google Ads (mediabot). But does it go further than that? An interesting post entitled Are we being penalised by Google? from the guys at TicTap, a mobile shopping service, questions the relation to Google’s indexing methods and web sites serving Google Ads. Now it may seem a bit far fetched, but who knows… Let’s say, hypothetically, Google gives a little boost to sites using Google AdSense. Multiply the amount Google would be making exponentially, and wow, no wonder Google stock is selling for $400+ a share…

Now hold on a second, I am not jumping to any conclusions, but business-wise it would make some “Sense“. Of course, ethically it’s a different story… And also it would imply that they are “evil”, which they promised not to be!

A new service was announced last Monday, allowing consumers to check prices on the go. I have yet to try the service myself, but it seems like it has potential. However, it has yet to be determined if the majority of the general consumer population will put an item down in the store to save a few bucks and wait to go home order it online and receive it via mail at a later date. It will definitely depend on:

• Timeliness of the item to the Consumer
• Amount of savings over the in-store price

For larger price differences (more savings) and items that can wait, definitely a good idea.

Additional Information / Press Releases

• Frucall Beta Launch Press Release (Yahoo!)
• Online Comparison Shopping Made Even Easier with Mobile Phones
• Online or Offline, Price Comparison Tools Help Consumers Shop Smart

There had been some buzz this month in the shopping toolbar industry, so I thought I would provide brief recap. Although I still am not certain about how users perceive downloading a toolbar to their browser, they seem to be rolling full steam ahead.

Pronto
Pronto is a price guiding toolbar for Windows that will compare prices on the fly while you browse merchant sites. It is similiar to Dealio and ActiveShopper which I have blogged about in the past. You can read more in this article Pssst! You Can Get It Cheaper Over There.

ActiveShopper
Shelron had a few press releases this month regarding some new happenings with ActiveShopper.

First was that it is launching a UK based site, which their release stated “The UK’s Leading Online Comparison Shopping Site Provides Content to ActiveShopper.com“… In real terms, they will be using Shopping.com’s UK API to run their UK website.

The other release, is about the launch of the mobile version of the ActiveShopper website, which continues to give the idea of price comparison while in a retail store… Which is still an interesting concept, and I wonder how well normal consumers will adapt to it in the future.

Following up with my post about ActiveShopper’s interesting partnerships, are some other interesting ways to shop and compare prices as you go… And the companies that are powering their services.

4INFO
The service enables the search and delivery of real-time information to a mobile device. The have enabled a Price Comparison service which is actually backed by data from Shopping.com. Read more in a blog post here.

411Sync

This is an interesting concept… They have and Open SMS API that allows developers to add their own site to the 411 sync system. Developers can use 411sync SMS (Text Message) Services to offer custom information to the users. Essentially you can make your own web service SMS accessible. Definitely something I will be checking out further.

They have 256 different queries that can be sent to their system to return different information. For shopping, currently, they numerous queries available, such as price comparison from Yahoo! Shopping, NexTag, and MSN Shopping. And also, deals from GottaDeal.com, DealCatcher, and deal of the day from Buy.com.

More details at:
http://www.411sync.com/
sms@411sync.com

Other blog entries, which describe it briefly I found here, and another one with an example here.

It will be interesting to see how these services do as more SmartPhone / PDA technology becomes available.

Attending Affiliate Summit last month I got to hear Jeff Barr speak about Amazon’s newest web service technologies. One that was particularly interesting was the Mechanical Turk web service. Mechanical Turk is “artificial artificial intelligence”… It allows users to complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. For example, identifying objects in pictures, translating text, or even answering simple questions.

A recent post to the AWS Blog tells about a new web site that offers the service of asking questions.

Have you ever needed to get an answer to a question in a hurry, perhaps something that you can’t find in your favorite search engine? If so, you may want to tap into the internet-scale Mechanical Turk workforce using the new question asking system at Ask For Cents.

The premise is you pay people pennies, nickels or dimes to answer any questions you have. The issue is the quality of the answers you get back. Currently, the site is in Alpha testing and submitting questions is free… So try it out.

I had talked to Jeff Barr briefly at the Affiliate Summit about a similiar idea and he mentioned he thought someone was working on it. I assume he meant this. So I tested it out from a shopping perspective. I asked three questions, each receiving two answers from the site. The results were very quick (within 5-10 minutes). The first two questions were pricing based questions and the third question was more of a research question.

Question #1 sent Tue, 14 Feb 2006 06:59:01 +0200
Which online web site has the Kenneth Cole KC3500 Wrist Watch for the cheapest price?

Answer 1 received Tue, 14 Feb 2006 07:03:01 +0200
Ashford.com Link

Answer 2 recieved Tue, 14 Feb 2006 07:03:21 +0200
amazon has 2 sellers

WorldofWatches
Diamond.com
both are 131.00

Critique
These answers are both good, but could be better. The real answer is Ashford.com, which was Answer #1. But they also have a coupon right now for 20% off or a different coupon for 10% off and free shipping.

Question #2 sent Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:19:05 +0200
What web site has the lowest price on the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card for a notebook computer? Is there any coupon or rebate for it?

Answer 1 received Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:22:15 +0200
SuperWarehouse.com Link
$30 rebate

Answer 2 received Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:29:04 +0200
http://www.directron.com/audigy2zsnb.html

Directron has it for $85.99 with a $30 mail in rebate. The rebate form
is at the bottom of the site listed above

Critique
Good answers, but again not the best. This was actually a deal posted on xpBargains.com from Radioshack for $90 - $40 rebate is $50 shipped. The Directron is cheaper, but before shipping costs.

Question #3 sent Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:42:55 +0200
Where can I buy a remote shutter for panansonic lumix fz30?

Answer 1 recieved Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:45:18 +0200
PartStore.com Link

Answer 2 recieved Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:48:59 +0200
Try here:
Bhphotovideo.com Link

Critique
Both answers were incorrect! Didn’t match what the question was. I took the question from a Yahoo! Answers post which was currently waiting for answers. The research question yieled the worst results… fitting it was the most complex question.

My initial thoughts for using mechanical turk was finding some way to integrate it into shopping or shopping comparison sites. Maybe let users ask questions and rather than waiting for a shopping community to respond, receive answers quickly.

Or how about from a mobile device? Asking a product question while in the store and receiving an answer back in 5 minutes… Hmm. Contact me with business proposals

Technorati Tags: mechanical turk, amazon, web services, social shopping, answers

Shelron Group which owns ActiveShopper recently released a press release which stated:

During Q1 of 2005 both parties have signed a letter of intent to enter into a licensing agreement, where the agreement will give Shelron worldwide rights to use and license NeoMedia’s PaperClick® technology and patents in an ActiveShopper(TM) Mobile Edition for cell phones and PDAs.

I finally got a chance to look at the NeoMedia technology, PaperClick. From the PaperClick.com web site:

PaperClick can read alphanumeric or numeric characters, this allows for any grouping of letters or numbers that could be “turned on” or “linked” to a Web page (URL). From consumer products to license plates to posters, anything can be a direct link to a web page (URL).

So imagine essentially scanning a product in a retail store and comparing prices online, on your cell phone or PDA. A very interesting idea… But I wonder how store owns would feel about it. Maybe you can get a bargain out if it

But I believe Amazon filed a patent on barcode price comparison back in September 2005, found some information at this blog post.

Anyways, the Shelron Group stock (SHRN.OB) went up a couple pennies so I sold some shares.