Your customers are going to comparison shop—period. The web makes it so easy to do, it’s simply a fact of ecommerce life. With this in mind, using comparison shopping engines (CSEs) to improve sales simply makes good sense.
What Is a Comparison Shopping Engine?
These sites collect product pricing and listings from online retailers and display them upon demand to shoppers looking to find the best deal on an item. If the concept seems new to you, odds are you’ve already used one without realizing it. Amazon’s“more buying choices” feature is the company’s own version of a CSE, with which its shoppers can look for better pricing, shipping terms, or a combination of the two. Amazon’s customers find the best price/shipping combination and Amazon still gets a cut from the transaction. It’s the best of all worlds for everyone involved.
The Benefits Are Numerous
If you’re not in a position to host your own comparison shopping engine like Amazon does, you can still list your products on some of the most popular CSEs to take advantage of their attributes. In so doing, you’ll gain exposure to a wider range of shoppers who are intending to make a purchase. In many cases, these are people who may not have found you on their own. Most comparison engines also host reviews of a seller’s performance, so this is a good way to generate positive word of mouth too. What’s more, if you’re just getting your business started with one of the free ecommerce websites available online, it’s a great opportunity to be presented on equal footing with more established sellers.
How to Stand Out on a CSE
To get started, you’ll create a product listing for the engine in which you’ll quote a price, your delivery terms and any other pertinent information. If the products you offer are unique, you’re likely todo especially well because your competition won’t be as significant. However, if you’re dealing in more mainstream items, you’ll have to make more of an effort to price attractively, offer an advantageous product proposition and make your products look as attractive as possible in the listings. While CSEs are largely price driven, if you’re offering a combination of price and service your competitors can’t match, you’ll be in a much stronger position.
Why They Work So Well
At their essence, comparison shopping engines are very similar to online catalogs. They display photographs of the product along with a detailed listing and they’ll give you an opportunity to lay out your unique selling proposition. In other words, a CSE listing is really an expanded advertisement. And, when a shopper clicks on it, the likelihood of purchasing is very high, as they’ve already perused the offering from many other retailers before settling on yours. So, while they work similarly to other pay-per-click schemes, the difference here is clicks tend to translate into sales, rather than mere information gathering. The shopper has all the information they need before they click with a comparison shopping engine ad.
The Bottom Line
Using comparison shopping engines to improve sales can be a very effective method of generating more revenue for your site. Yes, you’ll pay a fee to be listed, but unlike other pay-per-click propositions, comparison shopping engine clicks tend to translate into sales. Thus, your ROI is likely to be better. After all, CSE clicks are informed clicks, as the shopper has had exposure to all the information they need to make a purchase decision. When a customer arrives at your site from a CSE, they’re usually ready to buy.
