E-consultancy released a (UK) report for March 2006 entitled Shopping Comparison Engines: Buyer’s Guide. Here are some important points I picked up on:

An increase in the shopping comparison market across the board, specifically:

“The shopping comparison market is growing at 30% year-on-year, according to figures from comScore Media Metrix.”

We are heading towards affiliates driving more of the comparison engines’ traffic.

Merchants may be better off selecting to advertise with niche comparison sites, rather than the biggest ones. The report states:

“There may be niche or vertical-specific comparison sites which can do a better job at qualifying the leads, resulting in higher conversion rates and an improved return on investment.”

Market Summary

• Growing shopping comparison market
• Increase in the ratio of traffic generated by comparison engine affiliates
• Appeal for niche or vertical-specific sites

All this information can be found in the:
E-Consultancy Shopping Comparison Engines Buyer’s Guide sample document.
For more details and information, you can buy the full research report for $179.

I believe that merchants may want to look at what steps companies are taking to create these niche shopping comparison portals. Shopping.com and Yahoo! have already taken the initial steps by providing their data to affiliates as a web service, thus, creating an environment for innovation. Hopefully, this innovation will lead to creation of niche sites and integration of pricing comparison information in unique and useful ways. Not simply hundreds of shopping comparison engine look-a-likes.

[tags]shopping comparison, e-consultancy, e-commerce, research[/tags]