Next Generation Shopping

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.

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.

I haven’t seen too much coverage on shopping comparison toolbars from other shopping-related blogs for sometime now. It appears they haven’t caught on for the masses and perhaps they won’t… For me the toolbars seem a little too instrusive, and many people seem to agree. Brian at ComparisonEngines.com compares them to Clippy the Paper Clip (from Microsoft office products). 

Still the ones listed below have caught my attention for continued growth and progress for 2006:

ActiveShopper
I have been following this one for a long time. It looks like it has some real promise in the future. It is a Shelron Group (SHRN) creation.  Today they have announced that they will be integrating coupons, which I will be interested to see how they go about this.

Dealio
This is a newer toolbar that was launched just this year in August 3, 2005. It was released by Vendio, which does a lot of work with eBay. I haven’t had much time to look into this, but I plan on trying it out next month.

I tried ActiveShopper a while back… The real power of these lies within identify the product correctly right when the shopper is ready to purchase. Its like having a personal salesman from each store saying what they’ll sell it to you for… “hey buddy get it from our store for $xxx less”.  Taking you away from the current merchant you are at.  So the consumer is happy, in a perfect world scenario…

But lets be realistic now.  As I stated earlier, the toolbars were too instrusive. Just like Clippy from Microsoft Office, the shopping toolbars I tried pops up even when I don’t want it to!   For example, when I would just be browsing around it would popup… Even when I’m not shopping. This was, to me, irritating and distracting.