Follow These Steps to Shopping Site Success

Follow These Steps to Shopping Site Success .As the e-commerce market matures, shopping-comparison sites, also called shopping search engines, continue to thrive as an excellent source of revenue for e-tailers. These sites connect your merchandise with consumers often ready to buy specific items at competitive prices. Typically, this approach saves shoppers both time and money while also providing e-store owners with an effective way to produce sales. In fact, in recent years, shopping comparison sites have advanced so much and become so popular that some Web shop owners profit solely from using these channels.


Getting listed on shopping-comparison sites can generate lots of revenue. Research from various sources consistently shows that conversions are higher with these sites than with pay-per-click and other forms of advertising. People are also more inclined to spend more money because they found your e-store through a trusted shopping portal, and that trust transfers to your brand. The questions, then, are how does an e-store get listed and how much does it cost?

Payment Models
There are essentially three categories of comparative shopping sites — the cost-per-action model, the subscription-fee model and the free model. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but aside from a few glaring exceptions, you get what you pay for. Cost-per-action advertising has long been lauded as one of the most affordable ways to advertise and many e-store owners would agree.

Cost-per-action generally means a pay-per-click model in which you will be required to pay your determined bid price whenever somebody clicks a link from the comparison site to a page on your site. CPA is considered to be among the best forms of comparative site advertising because it ensures that you don't have to pay a cent unless the site nets you traffic. (Other models exist, such as cost per sale and cost per thousand visitors but are less commonly used.) Generally, you can expect to pay around 15 to 20 cents for most merchandise in a shopping site PPC-based set up, with items such as jewelry or computers costing around 50 cents to $1 per click.

When shopping sites first debuted 12 years ago, most operated on a subscription fee basis. The Internet has come a long way since then, though, and a lot of advertising has moved away from this payment model. It is not a transparent method and some outlay is required without any kind of guarantee of results.

Finally, free services do exist and are typically provided by the larger search engines and search portals as a value-added service. While free advertising is usually a good thing, it will mean competing with a huge number of other e-stores to win potentially only a very small number of interested visitors.

Product Data Feeds and Formats
Regardless of the option you choose, you will need to submit a product data feed. Data feeds have become very popular. They are essentially files that contain information pertaining to one or more products from your online catalog. The more information they include the better, but this should never be at the expense of engaging and clear content.

RSS data feeds can be in a number of formats but XML is advised for most of the major comparison sites. However, check the requirements of any site you are considering because they may require the file delivered in a tab-delimited text file format as is the case for Yahoo shopping.

There are a couple of ways to create an RSS file. You can use an editor designed for the purpose or you can create a file using a simple text editor. An editor or third-party application will do most of the work for you, while the latter will require you to learn some XML coding.

An RSS file looks just like an HTML file except it has different tags and the files end in .rss or .xml rather than .html. If tab-delimited text, it ends in .txt. The file is made up of header information and item information with the item information containing the actual content.

Getting From Here to There
Most shopping sites have an area in which you can find all the details for submitting feeds, for instance, to list on Yahoo Shopping, you can use the company's Product Submit and find all the information you need at a dedicated FAQ section. (Yahoo Merchant Solutions and Yahoo Store customers, however, do not need to create a feed — products are pulled directly from your catalog each time its published.) After you sign up for Yahoo Product Submit, you create your files according to their specifications and upload them using the company's Web-based tool.

Another resource for shopping feeds is a third-party solution such as MerchantAdvantage, which automatically creates and manages feeds for dozens and dozens of shopping sites, and also offers analytics data on what products are selling and so on.

Compelling Content Converts
In regard to creating content for your feeds, always try to include as much information as possible. Of particular importance is the inclusion of product identifiers. Product name, manufacturer name, manufacturer code and other identifiers should definitely be included to ensure that you are included in searches for any of these terms. The product description is your main sales pitch. It is possible, in most cases, to include a short and a long description so take advantage of this wherever possible. Both should contain all the relevant information about the product to help the browser make any potential buying decisions. A link to the product page and the product image should also be provided. Unique ID, price, category and any other information you have regarding the product should be included. If you provide too much information, then the surplus will be ignored. However, if you dot not provide enough information, then all of the information you do provide will be ignored.

Shopping Comparison Sites Submission and Strategy
Look at the major search engines first. Google offers two potential avenues for data feeds, Froogle and Google Base. In addition to Yahoo Shopping, AOL also has a feed submission site. Shopping.com, PriceRunner.com and Kelkoo.com are three large shopping comparison sites that you might consider, too.

You should also try out marketplaces that perform well with your specific demographic or merchandise. For example, PriceShaker.com focuses on appliances and electronics, while Buyer's Edge specializes in computers and electronics and gets 80 percent of its traffic from New York, California, Texas and Florida, and Pronto.com sells a lot of home and garden and apparel items....

Visit our shopping site and find great deals at Every Day Low Prices.