Next Generation Shopping

With all the hype about social shopping, Facebook, Shopping 3.0 (what?), etc. we couldn’t stand to be left out. Today we released our own social shopping application on the Facebook platform dubbed “My Shopping”. The application was released via SecretPrices.com with plans of integrating portions of the functionality in the future.

The application allows users to shop online with their Facebook friends. Anyone can search for books, music, movies, gadgets, clothing, or anything you have a need for. They can then rate, mark, and share items. For any item a user can view how many of their friends like or dislike that item, as well as compare the lowest prices available from retail stores.

View www.secretprices.com/myshopping for the full details or read the official press release on Yahoo! News.

You may also notice that SecretPrices.com has a new look and some new features. We’ll be getting to that news shortly as well.

Earlier this week SecretPrices.com was featured in The Mortgage Market Guide weekly. This newsletter goes out to thousands of people involved in the Mortgage and Real Estate industry. It was very interesting and exciting to find our site popup in this newsletter deemed as a money saving tool.
Here is a blip from the article:

“But what if you could buy online, knowing that you got a good deal on the item…without having to invest hours of your valuable time pounding the streets, or surfing all over the internet to ensure the lowest price?

Well, wish no more.

Check out www.secretprices.com, loaded with special coupons and discounts for many popular online stores, such as Amazon, Brookstone and Sharper Image. Ever buy at Office Depot, Gap or Circuit City? The website is loaded with savings for all these companies - most of which are discounts on any purchase you make, not just for one particular item they are trying to get rid of. It’s like having a personal “cyber shopper” that goes out and does the bargain shopping for you - it saves you time and money too.”

You can read the full article here.

One point mentioned was our No Advertisement policy. It is great to see people recognize and appreciate a site safe of spyware, popups and distracting advertisements. It is a trade-off between additional revenue and customer satisifaction.

Technorati Tags: secretprices, mortgage, mortgage guide, mortgate market guide, real estate, advertising

SecretPrices.com was recently written up in one of the cover articles in the September edition (September 2006) of Smart Computing magazine. The article titled “Mashups: Melting Pots Of Search Tools” by Nathan Lake covered a variety of new mashups, they value the add, and the different niches they cover. Nathan had this to say about Secret Prices:

“SecretPrices.com (www.secretprices.com), for instance, uses programming tools and data provided by such companies as Amazon.com, Shopping.com, and Epinions.com to compare hundreds of online store prices in order to present the best deals; it even looks for online coupons. We used SecretPrices.com and found four online copies of “The Godfather” DVD collection priced from $34.91 (Overstock.com) to $74.99 (Circuit City).”

A good article on Mashups, so pickup a copy if you are interested. Thanks Nathan.

A new mashup on ProgrammableWeb called SecretPrices.com Deals via Phone caught my eye today. I know I haven’t been sleeping much lately, but I didn’t recall making that new mashup. And I know we haven’t released our own API (yet). So I was intrigued as to what it was. As it ends up, it looks like the guys at 411 Sync took our deals RSS feed and made it available via any mobile device.

I was quick to try it out, and it worked!  Here is how you can try it:

1. Write a new text message or email on your phone with “secretprices” as the body.
2. Send it to 415-676-8397 OR sms@411sync.com
3. Wait a few seconds
4. Recieve the latest deals list on your phone.

You can find details here or see the results on the web here.

Pretty cool.  The mashup was submitted by Manish Lachwani, so thanks Manish!

Technorati Tags: 411Sync, SecretPrices, mashup, 411 Sync

On August 2nd SecretPrices.com was featured on Mashups.com as the Mashup of the day.

“August 2nd 2006 : secretprices.com. Here’s a full-blown mashup that you’ll find interesting and, if you buy onlione, could save you a lot of money. It uses APIs from Amazon, A9, Shopping.Com and many others to find the best prices for just about anything, but more than that, it also offers any extra special discounts and coupons for you. And it’s completely advertising free!”

Thanks for the kind words Robin.

Technorati Tags: mashup, mashups, api

Jeff Barr over at the AWS Blog has posted a very nice writeup about SecretPrices.com and the Amazon perspective…

“True to the site’s name, there’s a list of secret deals and also a so-called “tag cloud” of coupons. You can post any product to Digg or to Delicio.us.

Interestingly enough, Mark told me that the lowest priced vendor doesn’t always get the sale. There’s a strong preference toward Amazon among his user base. That’s good to hear, and there are undoubtedly many reasons for this. I’ll take a guess at a few. First, people are loathe to create yet another online account. Second, they would like to deal with a known entity where possible. Third, they have probably had some positive experiences with Amazon in the past — an easy shopping and buying experience, on-time shipping, and responsive customer service…”

Take a minute and read the full post over at the AWS Blog.

Technorati Tags: aws, amazon web services, secretprices, brand loyalty

I placed my first order using Google Checkout last night. I was hesitant to try Google Checkout, but in the midst of an impulse buy I decided to give it a whirl. I picked up a Iomega 250 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive from RitzCamera for $19.95. This great product deal came curtiosy of a listing found at SecretPrices.com as the normal price is somewhere upwards of $250+. SecretPrices also had listed a coupon for $10 off $20 at RitzCamera, only valid when using Google Checkout. So the grand was $9.95 for the drive, plus shipping. Not sure if it was a price mistake or what, but the product was removed from Ritz’s website only a few hours after my purchase. Update: RitzCamera cancelled my order stating that the item was “out of stock”. Oh well!

The whole process for Google Checkout was straightforward and simple. It seemed easier than using the relatively clunky RitzCamera checkout interface itself (which has given me problems in the past when using FireFox). Of course you it seems you need a Gmail account to use the service (which is still by invitation only?).

After the purchase you can keep track of your order using the Google Checkout History found in your Google account. Also, Google also allows you to refrain from giving out your Gmail email address and just having Google forward information on from the merchant.

Technorati Tags: google checkout, gmail, ritzcamera

SecretPrices.com was recently mentioned in the article “How Web 2.0 is built” posted April 6th on Yahoo! France. I can get the general gist of what it is saying from the translated version, but not 100%. If anyone knows French, I’d like to know really like to know what it says exactly.
(Links: Article Link | Translated Link)

For as long as I can remember, deal/bargain sites like DealCatcher, and comparison shopping sites, like PriceGrabber, remained separate entities. Being a true online bargain hunter meant monitoring deal sites like a cop visits Dunkin Donuts. Shopping comparison engines were only used when neccessary. Over time, as comparison engines matured, it became apparent how closely a match deal sites and shopping comparison sites were for each other. Every major deal site began to partner with a shopping comparison engine, namely PriceGrabber. See for yourself all the PriceGrabber co-brands that have popped up over the years… TechBargains, DealCatcher, Got|Apex, and numerous others, all have PriceGrabber co-brand partners.

While having a co-brand is a step up from completely sending your hard-earned visitor away from your site completely, it is still very limiting. For the first time, with the recent development of the e-commerce APIs and the Web 2.0 transition, the opportunity exists to blend the two, leaving the end-user, the consumer, relying on only one site.

Watch out deal sites, the future is here…

The original concept behind SecretPrices.com was to fully integrate deal and coupon information into price comparison listings to ensure the consumer knows how to receive the lowest price. While the technology is still in its infant stages, I am proud to announce we are one step closer to fully achieving this! Product deals whether as simple as a product price drop, or as complex as combing a collection of rebates, coupons, or other promotional discounts, have been integrated directly into the product page listings of SecretPrices.com (view deals section here).

An example “product deal” can be seen on the Hitachi MD6GB-BP 6 GB Hard Drive product page. First, take a minute and view this product on a Price Comparison engine (eg. Shopping.com or PriceGrabber)… You’ll see the lowest price from J&R, offering it for $169.99 on Shopping.com, and $159.99 from ZipZoomFly on PriceGrabber (not including StoreFront offerings). What it doesn’t tell you is that Dell is offering the same product for $179.99 with a $50 rebate. Oh yeah, and Dell also has a $20 coupon code until mid-April. Put the savings together and that is $70 off (dropping the price to about $110), a full $50 cheaper than the lowest price on a comparison engine listing. Doesn’t it give you a good feeling knowing all that?

How does the consumer benefit?

Comparison shopping is popular because it saves people time and effort from “site-hopping” to check prices. It’s no secret that savvy-bargain hunters still look further for coupons, rebates or other discounts. This means still having to site hop, producing extra work and extra time for the user. Read more »

I came across a couple posts that pose the questioning the state of the e-commerce mashup industry. One post at WebApiTracker.com and another by Charles Hudson on his blog post Where are all the E-Commerce Mashups?

Charles states:

But what I have been wondering for awhile now is why all of the energy focused on creating content or mapping mashups hasn’t spilled over to e-commerce.

It is good to see people interested in this field and that they see its potential as well. Hopefully, I’ll get some quality feedback and ideas to integrate into SecretPrices.com.

Technorati Tags: E-Commerce, Web 2.0, Mashups