Price comparison shopping engines

Price comparison shopping engines are getting more and more popular as customers wants to know where they can buy a particular item for the lowest price. But these comparison engines are also great for retailers. Because it grants you an opportunity to attract new customers. It also can help you with increasing sales and distancing yourself from the competition. Let’s have a look at some big and popular price comparison shopping engines in Europe.

Google Shopping
This is one of the biggest comparison shopping engines (let’s call them CSEs from here on, okay?) out there. It was a free CSE, but since October 15, 2012 merchants have to pay to get listed. A good thing about this site: it’s integrated with Google Adwords. And products that are submitted to Google Shopping will also be displayed on Googles standard search.

Ciao!
This CSE was founded in 1999 by two Germans. Ten years later it already had locations in Munich, London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Romania and the United States. Ciao was purchased by Microsoft in August, 2008. As a result the official name changed to ‘Ciao from Bing’ as its reviews became a part of Microsofts search engine Bing. Three years later Ciao got acquired by LeGuide.com Group. Special about Ciao! is it also shows customer reviews very prominently.

Bing Shopping
With the disposal of the aforementioned Ciao, Microsoft didn’t step out of the CSE market. It launched Bing Shopping and it’s, like Google Shopping with Google, accessible from the search engine. So people who use this seac h engine will notice the Shopping section and maybe pay the site a visit. Product listings (which are free by the way) will appear directly on the search results pages of Bing.
Update 2018: Microsoft has discontinued Bing Shopping.

Shopping.com
Shopping.com is an eBay company. It’s merchant program is performance based, so you only pay when they deliver a customer to your site. As of November 2012 Shopping.com will syndicate listings to Google Shopping. “Via our new partnership, you automatically get exposure on this high-performing channel without any extra effort.”

PriceGrabber
Users of this site can search in English or Spanish. If you’re an merchant that uses PriceGrabber you can also send your product listings to Yahoo! Shopping. PriceGrabber also offers Market Reporter, a market research tool that allows you to track consumer purchase and product pricing trends.

Shopzilla
Shopzilla was founded in 1996 and is still in the game. It has more than 100 million products listed, so for customers this is a very good choice and a very often used site. It is one of the leading CSE’s in the world and helps shoppers in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany discover the best products. There are no set up fees, you only pay for clicks directed to your online store. Product listings will also appear across the Shopzilla sites, like BizRate and AOL’s InStore.com.

The Find
You can join the merchant program of this CSE for free and this way show your products and highlight your own coupons. The Find is especially handy for merchants who are looking for British customers.

Become
Become was founded in 2004 with a mission to help people make ideal buying decisions. In March 2009 the company launched Become.co.uk, their second international offering. Become’s merchant program is CPC based and a listing of your products appear on over ten shopping portals.

Kelkoo
Kelkoo is one of the largest CSEs in the United Kingdom. It has a reach of over ten million users per month and Nielsen called it ‘ one of the top 10 most influential websites of the decade’. You only have to pay Kelkoo if a user clicks through to your site. Advertising on Kelkoo means that your products also appear on partner sites like Yahoo, Virgin, Nuts and Tiscali Shopping. Kelkoo has sites operational in the European countries Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden.

Beslist.nl
On this Dutch website customers can leave reviews and check for the best prices. Beslist.nl is one of the biggest CSEs in the Netherlands, with Vergelijk.nl en Kieskeurig.nl as their main competitors. By the way, if you want to see what CSEs are widely used in the Netherlands check out this handy overview.