Priceandoffer, a new price comparison service in Uk

On the internet, a price comparison service (also known as shopping comparison or price engine) allows individuals to see different lists of prices for specific products. Most price comparison services do not sell products themselves, but source prices from retailers from whom users can buy. In the UK, these services made between £2000m and £220m in revenue in 2009, and is growing at an annual rate of 30% to 50%.

In UK there are many price comparison services and one of this new service is Priceandoffer.co.uk. It is located in London and has been in business since 2006. Priceandoffer.co.uk reports they have more than 6000 unique visitors each month and more than 20000 viewed pages. Now Priceandoffer has more than 600 merchant and, with a SEO campaign, it is going to increase the number of visitors.

Priceandoffer.co.uk began as a price comparison shopping service that specialized in computers, electronics and video games. Building on their success at finding great deals on those products, they have added additional categories including books, movies and music. When comparison shopping for items in any of these categories, Priceandoffer.co.uk is a great shopping to use because it is fast, easy to use and tracks down great prices.

Currently, Priceandoffer.co.uk is organized in the traditional manner of a comparison shopping site, with a directory-style listing of categories, accessible either through the main page listing (which includes the leading subdirectories) or by clicking on the tabs along the top. It also has a general search bar.

To use Priceandoffer, just enter the product name or exact model number into the search box. If a single match is found, you will instantly get the list of merchants selling the item. If there are multiple hits, you are presented with a list of all products matching your search terms, grouped by major categories. Select your product directly if you see it, otherwise choose one of the major category that is most appropriate and you will get a listing of all products that match within that category grouped by sub-categories. This makes it very easy to find your specific product.

Once you select your exact item, you are presented with a list of all merchants offering that product, sorted by price. Priceandoffer.co.uk will automatically give approximate sales tax and shipping costs in addition to the product's price depending by each merchants. It adds these together for your bottom line price, which is very useful since shipping costs and sales taxes can vary significantly between online merchants. Although shipping and sales tax is not included for every single vendor, it is included for the vast majority of them, making Priceandoffer superior to any other shopping bot in this regard.

Like other comparison shopping sites, once you click on a category, Priceandoffer.co.uk walks you through choices to narrow your search down to the product you are looking for, complete with ratings, reviewers by people who bought the product, and a starting price. To compare pricing or see the range, you will need to visit another page. When you finally reach the page for the specific product you want to investigate, “featured merchants” are listed first, followed by the remainder of sellers. Priceandoffer provides a lot of information to shoppers to make informed decisions, including not just merchant reviews, but also reviews from magazines on products, and “experts”.

Once you click on a seller, you are taken to the seller’s website and you purchase the item there. A true comparison shopping site, Priceandoffer is an information center, but is not actually involved in the buying and selling of items; rather they sell space for others to advertise your products. Merchant information is available via a simple click underneath each individual product for sale.

So what makes Priceandoffer different from other comparison shopping sites? There are a number of very useful and interesting options offered. For example, there is a feature to figure in shipping and tax based on your zip code called “BottomLinePrice”. Rebates for individual products are listed with the products. A useful addition is the ability to filter your results at various points during the process, where you can narrow your search by price within categories and subcategories, display only new prices, and track your searches.

Priceandoffer has a rather unique approach to tensuring their database is up-to-date with the latest prices and availability that all comparison shopping sites have. They ask users to report any mistakes they find, especially pricing errors.

While most other price comparison shopping services do not list any detailed product information, Priceandoffer.co.uk includes a variety of information on most items. Typically they have a product picture and list the manufacturer, product description and information on any rebates that are available. They also have detailed technical specifications and consumer reviews. Although all of this information is provided through partners such as mobilephones.bestproductsreview.net and digitalcameras.bestproductsreview.net, it is integrated directly with the Priceandoffer.co.uk website, making it easy to access.

Many online shopping bots use the product title and description supplied by each merchant. Because each of these is usually slightly different, it can be hard to zero in on all the listings just for your specific item. However, with Priceandoffer it is easy to focus on all listings for just your item since they use a unified database. Its speed, easy to use interface and ability to track down low prices make Priceandoffer one of the best shopping bots for computers, electronics, books, movies, music and video games.

Priceandoffer has an international reach beyond most other comparison shopping sites, including a site for Italy, Spain,France and the United Kingdom. For example, the italian price comparison service, Trovaofferte.net, is one of the first fourth price comparison service in Italy

The site requires you to register with them in order to access some of their most useful tools for buyers, such as writing a review, tracking a product and receiving price alerts, as well as the more understandable activating of a gift card or receiving quotes on a new car.

If a merchant wish to advertise on Priceandoffer, there is only a simple and free option that is to insert Priceandoffer link or banner in your website homepage. It is only required to give an updated catalogue of all merchant's products and you can start to join Priceandoffer service.

The usual tracking tools are provided in the program – number of sales, tracking of sales in a very close to real-time environment, etc., with reports available by category, brand, or product. The merchant option appears to be viable only to sellers with very large volumes of merchandise to sell, so small to medium sized businesses may find the storefront option a better initial choice unless they have a fair amount of experience with similar types of operations.

The cost of listing is a fixed amount that is set at the category level, however there also is a category for “featured merchants” listed at the top of the search results. As with most comparison shopping sites, PPC ads have to be handled somewhat differently. The main reason for this is that even if you bid and receive a number one ranking in the search results, buyers are usually shopping by price (unless you are selling a totally unique item), so if your price is higher than a merchant with good reviews but lower on the page, the extra advertising dollars you spent for the number-one ranking will be much less effective than “traditional” PP, as the buyer is likely to purchase from your competitor.

Priceandoffer truly acts as the intermediary in all ways, which is indeed characteristic of a comparison shopping site, but with so many rules and restrictions, and additional costs and penalties for what might be expected to come with an advertising package, sellers need to keep track of a lot of information in order to manage their accounts.

A very attractive site with a wide array of products and easy interfaces to work with, and in general a great comparison shopping site, but Priceandoffer needs more development of a more standard PPC approach if they wish to pursue this avenue of attracting advertisers, particularly for the smaller and medium-sized businesses.