News New bit-tech Shopping engine launched today

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/02/13/new_bit-tech_shopping_engine_launched/1

After listening to your comments and feedback, we have rolled out a new and improved version of bit-tech Shopping this afternoon.

 

Am I being retarded, or does cameras no longer have a lens section?
/edit - take that back, but you should have a lenses tab on the right instead of just sticking it under 35mm&SLR. Not exactly the first place I thought to look, especially as you've got less common stuff broken out along the side (and both lighting and flashes sections).

I'd say the taxonomy of the shopping section could use a bit of work

Also, why aren't the RSS icons in the left actually links to the feeds?

 

Holy hell, I can't believe it's been a year since BiT shopping went live!

 

I'll moved Lenses up a level, out of the 35mm SLR category.

The entirety of the cameras section is pretty messed up in terms of categorisation. I found kenko tubes under Large Format! Unfortunately the category structure is from PriceGrabber and I've only managed to develop minor dynamic changes to the structure.

I'll see about adding the feed icons to link to the feeds. I only really used them as icons to bring attention to the header but it does make sense for them to link.

 

Wow, thats some improvment, very clean stylee, well done jamie.

Sam

 

looks better shame it doesn't seem to actually cover many shops at all. Where's Aria? Scan? Ebuyer? Komplett?
Looks at prices of the Radeon 3870 512mb version on this and you'll get ripped off to the tune of £30 over what you could've paid.. and only Micro Direct apparently sells them! Unfortunately just like Kelkoo and other price comparison sites pricegrabber is rubbish if it's the only place you look.

 

gotta agree with you there...

just searching for a new 500gb samsung spinpoint at the mo and i kinda expected more than 5 sellers....
makes it a bit redundant if i have to use another search engine or visit the shops i know will be competitive but arent listed...

it looks nice tho

 

Hi guys, I hear everything you are saying. We are actively working with Pricegrabber to improve the range of retailers and products.

 

Looking slick, looking forward to a few more retailers

 

Needs more w2207h HP Monitor!

 

For those wondering why there aren't certain retailers listed for any one product, let me explain briefly how the Price Comparison market works (whether it's us, PriceGrabber, Shopping.com, Kelkoo or anyone really).

1) The retailer has to be prepared to pay a CPC (cost per click) fee to "advertise" their price for any one product via Comparison. There are some that just don't want to do that, for starters - they prefer to compete on service & reputation rather than purely on price.
2) The retailer has to pick one or more Comparison services - some hedge their bets and sign up several, while others are more focused on certain service providers
3) The retailer exports a list of products they want to pay CPC for potential leads to the service provider
4) The Comparison site then aggregates that list, and all the other lists, into the product listings you'd be familiar with.

Simple enough. So what are the reasons that any one retailer isn't showing a price when you search for a particular product?
1) Are they contracted to the Comparison service you're using?
2) Do they have available marketing budget to pay CPC for potential leads?
3) Do they have said product in stock? Some retailers drop products from their feeds when they are out of stock - why pay CPC for a lead when you can't convert to a sale?

If the answer to all the above is "yes" then there are still two more variables:
4) Do they make enough margin on said product to justify paying maybe 10 x CPC to get 1 x order? (this is just an example - I'm not sure what the actual conversion rate is, but there is one and it's a factor in this decision)
5) Even if ALL these are true, the final factor is Resources - do they have the man power and / or clever automated systems to *actually* include said product in their feed? Sometimes all the conditions can be met but just nobody has ticked a box that says "make this one appear on PriceGrabber pls kthxbye"

As for Darkedge's question, all of those retailers are members of our program so if they aren't listed sellers for that product then one of the above conditions must have failed.

At the end of the day, it's a constantly evolving service. If you have a specific query, email Hiren and he'll look into it for you.

 

^^ Good response, just done an internet marketing module and didn't realise just how complex some of the issues were. Gotta love the argument about is the internet leading to a downward pressure on prices, cos of price transparency due to sites like these. Not as simple as you first think.
Good work on the shopping site tho guys and yea I can't believe it's been a whole year since initial release too!

 

I like the new layout, it that going to rolled out across Bit?

 

Looking good, I see theres no more £4K hard drives lol

 

Wat about including euro?

 

we're going to roll you across bit

 

PG are just expanding into europe so we will be able to offer more markets in the future

 

Oooh yeh, fighting talk from TR there!

 

a quick search for "COD4" (Call of duty)
http://shopping.bit-tech.net/uk/search?q=cod4

And I get dog and cat food?

Why does bit even link to this?