Price Comparison sites don't Compare Prices

BBWebrouser

Strictly speaking, this is neither a warning or a rip-off just clearing up a misconception.

Price Comparison websites should be better known as ECommerce Database Feed Websites as there is not one single site out there that actually compares prices. It's true that the user can, indeed, compare products and prices but the website certainly doesn't do it for you. Each site owner will contact a wholesaler who will then be given a username and password to place products onto the site. The website owner then takes a commission, usually around 10%, on sales generated through his site. Therefore, in simple terms sites like price runner or holidaysupermarket have products that are 10% more than you could 'probably' find elsewhere. Someone should do a price comparison comparison website. (There are other such sites available ie. dealclick , pricerunner available).

Just thought that you all should now as I've only just found out myself having been asked to perform SEO on such a site.

hollydays

Whats SEO......................

dbrooks19

The price comparison sites do not add an amount on top of the value of an item (10% in your example) the price on the price comparison site is the same as the site selling the product they just obtain a commission from the selling website for passing on the customer. The likes of Kelkoo, Pricerunner etc usually charge a price per click through as a way to charge. Other sites like you said will gain a commission on a sale, much the same way as Rpoints, Quidco etc pass on that commission to the likes of us.

SEO by the way is Search Engine Optimisation, a method of optimising a website in order to obtain higher search engine rankings in the likes of Google etc

hollydays

Ty. Ttfn...........

browolf

i was on kelkoo the other day and it didnt seem to want to let me sort by price. bit useless if u ask me. could have sworn it used to do that.

uktim29

Whats wrong with this though?

A massive site takes a lot of people to run and update, how do you think they financially manage?

Technically their not placing orders from a wholesaler, their an affiliate. They'll join affiliate websites where merchants have commission programs. If they sell something through their link their get a percentage of the sale.

But large websites don't run for free, they have to make money to cover costs to survive. This ones the same. Do you know money saving expert makes £17.50 everytime someone takes a free trial of lovefilm form this link http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1134152286,68176,? And from more or less anything else it compares?

Do you expect large sites to run at a loss?

eryn_kathleen

I don't expect these sites to run at a loss, and I have no problem with them getting commission since it doesn't add on to the price that I pay.

On the other hand, I know that Kelkoo and Pricerunner (just as two examples) don't check every online retailer. I've found things cheaper than their listed lowest price on several occasions. For gadgets and computer items it's particularly easy to beat their lowest price.

I do use price comparison websites when I know the exact item (make and model) I'm looking for, but I always double-check their results.

C_Ronaldo

browolf wrote:

i was on kelkoo the other day and it didnt seem to want to let me sort by price. bit useless if u ask me. could have sworn it used to do that.

ive noticed that too, some products it will let you sort by price but other products you cant

Astaroth

I have never seen a single price comparison site that adds anything onto the price the retailer sells at (and I have checked a large amount in my time). Certainly the company that sells the products will be paying a commission to the refer but this is simply part of their marketing spend in exactly the same as affiliate links are like on this site or TV/ Bus sides/ Radio/ Yellow Pages etc.

Obviously ultimately every customer pays for a companies marketing spend but I would challenge anyone to name any national company that spends nothing at all on marketing.

Do they cover all of the market? Of cause not, not every company wants/ can afford to pay for affiliate marketing, with the millions of sites in existance it would be totally impractical to trawl every single one on an often enough basis to maintain an accurate (esp when they also maintain stock situations) and then searching becomes impractical for many items when you get 100,000+ hits for generic searches people use.

If you do feel bad that a company is being paid for doing a service for you then simply use the different price comparison sites to find the lowest price for you and then go through the likes of Quidco or other "cashback" sites where you yourself receive the affiliate link commission rather than pricerunner.

Ultimately of cause if everyone did this then price comparison sites no longer make money and so either close down or introduce some other methodology of charging

revrobuk

One small site which doesn't hide how it makes it's money and covers all of Europe is...

http://www.venditor.com

I've used it in the past and have managed to find some good deals. Also the site info pages are quite quirky and worth a read.

Rex_Mundi

There was a feature about this not so long ago on ther BBC. They looked at price comparison sites, and reported that Froogle consistently came up with the cheapest prices. It's an excellent place to look if you know the exact product you are after. I always use it to find the cheapest price, then check Quidco to see if I can get cashback from the retailer with the best price.