Price comparison

choosewisely

Does anyone know of a good price comparison engine for consumables? I know there's lots of cartridge sites mentioned in the forums but is there anywhere you can search for a cartridge and get a comparison between sites without actually having to visit each one and look it up?

choosewisely

I guess not!

cafenervosa_2

Price comparison sites are great, I use the DVD ones!

choosewisely

I agree, but an accurate printer consumables one would be useful!

FindMeInk

Consumables comparison site I hear you say?

I've actually just launched one this afternoon, was an on-going project of mine. I currently have 10 stores product feeds in my database, and this should be increasing in the very near future as I am awaiting response from another 8 shops, and still looking for more.

Give it a go, any comments suggestions would be great too if you get a chance!

Heres the URL: Find Me Ink

choosewisely

Nice site - lot of data entry work to build up that database (did something similar myself once)

Here's my comments - don't take them as critiscism as they're only my personal opinion and overall I like the site!

Firstly I'd prefer a more concise list similar to how Kelkoo do it. I don't think the large amount of space the 'view pic' graphic takes up is well used and personally don't need the blurb that some products have. When I'm looking for price comparisons I first like a list of products (don't even need images really at this stage) that I can glance down, quickly identifying the best suppliers and then I click on them to view more details or visit their site - having only 10 products per page and them being so widely spaced makes comparing them alongside each other a little harder.

Secondly this is probably quite complicated but it'd be useful to have an indication of delivery costs (and maybe a total price + delivery cost) as the cheapest products could well have the highest postage cost.

Third and final point! - Maybe a rating system for the suppliers so buyers can review or rate them. It could be the deciding factor if two suppliers are fairly even on price but one has 5 stars for being an excellent supplier whereas the other only has 1 star for being duff!

Hope that helps and hope the site goes well - I suppose comparison engines only work when they have a critical mass of suppliers to actually give a true comparison of what's out there.

FindMeInk

Thanks for your comments choosewisely, they are very much appreciated - Its the only way to improve!

Yeah, spot on, I dont like the large amount of space either. I'm thinking of making the 'View Pic' button much smaller, and getting rid of the description. Maybe even changing the 'View Pic' to 'More Info' or something then open up a pop-up with the image, description, and maybe some other info in too. Then I can fit more than 10 products on a screen at anyone time.

As for delivery costs / total price. This would be easy to code - If only that information was available in the feeds, unfortunatly its not, and it would be a great addition. I might have a word with the shops to see what they can do.

A rating system was actually in my plans on teh next major update, I have started planning it all out on paper, so I should be starting on the code shortly!

You've been a greeat help, and glad to hear that you think it has promise.

choosewisely

I know what you mean about delivery charges - they vary so much and are calculated differently by different companies and if you're buying more than one product it could be misleading to see the delivery charge on each product when in reality you might only have to pay one delivery charge per order.

One of the biggest problems I find with some ecommerce sites is having to add a product to the shopping cart and go all the way through to the checkout (sometimes having to fill out your name and address) to find out what the delivery cost will be as it's not always evident on a site. If you're comparing prices and need to bring postage into the equation this really slows you down visiting each site and look it up or get the postage calculated.

Could you get the suppliers to supply a table of their standard delivery charges which you can then attach to the supplier's record rather than the product record?

This way there's no complex or potentially misleading postage calculations to perform on each product but by clicking on a delivery icon to view a table of the supplier's charges it quickly lets you get a feel for the cost rather than having to visit each site to find out.

FindMeInk

Some excellent suggestions you have made there regarding delivery costs, you've given me some good ideas and these will be implemented soon on the next update! Thanks!

RobinMe

I use https://www.kelkoo.co.uk
Maybe not the best as it's a paid for listing, but it's worth a look.

FindMeInk

choosewisely wrote:

I know what you mean about delivery charges - they vary so much and are calculated differently by different companies and if you're buying more than one product it could be misleading to see the delivery charge on each product when in reality you might only have to pay one delivery charge per order.

One of the biggest problems I find with some ecommerce sites is having to add a product to the shopping cart and go all the way through to the checkout (sometimes having to fill out your name and address) to find out what the delivery cost will be as it's not always evident on a site. If you're comparing prices and need to bring postage into the equation this really slows you down visiting each site and look it up or get the postage calculated.

Could you get the suppliers to supply a table of their standard delivery charges which you can then attach to the supplier's record rather than the product record?

This way there's no complex or potentially misleading postage calculations to perform on each product but by clicking on a delivery icon to view a table of the supplier's charges it quickly lets you get a feel for the cost rather than having to visit each site to find out.

All prices include VAT and P&P now! Theres always a solution to a problem! :cool: