Shopping for Shopping Search Engines
At this point, I have a difficult time imagining that I once had to make major purchases without knowing what dozens of different retailers charged for a given product. The Web's price-finding search engines have spoiled me rotten in that respect -- even if the quest for perfect knowledge about a given gadget's pricing sometimes gets in way of actually buying the thing.
But which site should I use? It would be a mistake to keep plugging my queries into the same old search engine when competitors may yield a lower price. So I thought I'd see how four major shopping search sites -- Google Product Search, PriceGrabber.com, Microsoft's Live Search Cashback and Yahoo Shopping -- did in a few sample queries.
All four sites operate in the same basic manner, asking you to type in a product's name and then returning a set of links to click through to retailers -- though too often they will serve up multiple sets of results instead of a single low-to-high list of prices. They all include users' ratings of these stores, but PriceGrabber, Live Search Cashback and Yahoo can also estimate shipping and sales tax based on your Zip code. Cashback, a recent offshoot of Microsoft's older product-search site, offers a different, potentially lucrative wrinkle, only showing stores that offer rebates on purchases made through this site.
* For the Philips DVDR3576 DVD recorder -- one of the only such models that can also record TV broadcasts on an internal hard drive -- Google, PriceGrabber and Yahoo generally agreed that the lowest available price was $300. But while Google found only two retailers offering this device, Yahoo located seven and PriceGrabber identified six (though the seemingly obvious choice of Amazon was not among them). Live Search Cashback couldn't find any deals for this model.
* In a query for Samsung's LN40A650, a 40-inch LCD HDTV, PriceGrabber located 20 retailers, with their lowest bottom-line price $1,378. Live Search Cashback found only 12 stores but beat that price, at $1,350 after rebate. Yahoo identified 12 stores, but its low price of $1,286 didn't reflect a $100 shipping charge listed on that merchant's own site. Google's confused results lumped in unrelated TV accessories, and the $1,242 figure at the low end of its results came from a store with mediocre ratings from buyers and a $99 shipping charge.
* Finally, I looked for an Apple iPod nano 8 GB player in black, expecting to see identical numbers all around -- Apple enforces its prices far more strictly than most companies. But I found some actual discounts and some dubious deals. PriceGrabber (21 stores found) and Yahoo (seven stores located) each beat Apple's $199 list price by $10 and change, but Yahoo's lowest price of $188 came from Amazon, while PriceGrabber's best price of $185 came at a store I'd never heard of. (Yahoo also listed a $159 price for a refurbished model that should not have shown up at all after I'd set the site to display only new models, not used products.) LiveSearch Cashback pointed me to an even lower price of $162, but a click through revealed that this iPod was in "like new" condition; the other 11 deals Cashback suggested were in the same ballpark as Yahoo and PriceGrabber's results. Google delivered the sketchiest results of all. The $125 price at Buy.com it turned up came from a third party renting virtual space at that store -- a wholesaler with only two buyer ratings, both strongly negative.
After running this little experiment, I think I'm as confused as ever about which search site to use. PriceGrabber offers the best presentation, but I can't rely on a site that doesn't cover Amazon's prices. Yahoo gets all the name-brand retailers but often suffers from a confusing presentation. I like Cashback's enlightened bribery, but I'm not sure about some of the companies participating in it. And Google's product search may cover more companies than most, but in some ways it's far too comprehensive.
Which price search engines should I be using? Enlighten me in the comments.
By Rob Pegoraro |
July 18, 2008; 11:26 AM ET
| Category:
The Web
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Posted by: Bill | July 18, 2008 2:50 PM
My opinion is it's not always about price.
I prefer to find a few core retailers to deal with when buying for two big reasons: 1) my personal information and credit cards are passed around the internet as little as necessary, and 2) I can be more familiar with a retailer's return policies and support. Also, if I am a repeat customer I suspect I could leverage my past purchases to get better treatment on the phone if it ever came to that.
Like a business, I try to pick my vendors with a combination of price, product range and the criteria above, so the search engines really don't help me much there. Besides, for MOST items the amount of money I would save from shopping around would probably be outweighed by the free time I had to spend.
Posted by: BR | July 18, 2008 3:44 PM
I actually used Live Search Cashback this week to get a deal on an Nikon 70-300vr lens. I was able to save about $20 over any other source, and the seller was a mainstream vendor. (Final price was $454)
I was very surprised, and it was supper easy. Highly recommended!
Posted by: Fred | July 18, 2008 5:48 PM
Rob -- an unrelated question for you. I've enjoyed following you on twitter.com. Why do you think your colleagues on the Tech desk aren't using web 2.0 to connect with readers?
We want to hear from @kimhart, @mikemusgrove, @ceciliakang and the rest of your cubicle world at WaPo.
What are the chances you can persuade them to join you?
Posted by: Bill | July 19, 2008 12:24 AM
I don't believe any single site is always the best. I use PriceGrabber as a primary search engine but then look at a couple of the usual suspects (e.g., Amazon) if PG doesn't return results from them. I don't think PG returns results from Amazon anymore, and there are other well-known online retailers that never seem to show up either. By the way, I hate the whole rebate concept, so I have no intention of using Cashback.
Posted by: no rebates | July 19, 2008 9:58 AM
Hey "no rebates",
The Cashback thing is not really a typical rebate. Once you complete your purchase, a payment will be made direct to your bank account. There is additional action required on your part. Pretty simple and painless. If you can find a better deal this way, it's just free money.
Posted by: Fred | July 19, 2008 1:22 PM
I use Pricegrabber and then Amazon. The two together cover most of the bases. The only thing that I am always careful to do with Pricegrabber is look at the actual comments on the ratings of the merchants. You often find that the merchant has spammed the site with five star ratings (in which case I avoid them like the plague).
Posted by: Ian | July 20, 2008 10:45 AM
I'm with commenter BR. I have a handful of preferred vendors and I give them all my business (Amazon being preferred for anything it sells and ships itself.)
Posted by: Dawny Chambers | July 20, 2008 6:12 PM
DVD recorders with hard drives were removed from the US market about a year or so ago. They are widely available in all of the other countries. In the US, consumers are left with only TIVO for which a subscription is needed. TIVO appears to have all of the patents for DVD recorders with hard drive.
Posted by: Herbert Sweet | July 21, 2008 3:01 AM
DVD recorders with hard drives were removed from the US market about a year or so ago. They are widely available in all of the other countries. In the US consumers are left with only TIVO for which a subscription is needed. TIVO appears to have all of the patents for DVD recorders with hard drive.
Posted by: Herbert Sweet | July 21, 2008 3:11 AM
I would throw CNET into the lot. I usually check the review and reader opinions if one is available. As for prices, you get anywhere form several to as many as 10 vendors.
Posted by: Jim Campbell | July 21, 2008 10:52 AM
I check 2 or 3 shopping search sites, usually read about the product at the brand's web page, do a google search for coupons and then 95% of the time wind up buying at Amazon, for the best price and service.
Posted by: Emilie | July 21, 2008 11:18 AM
I'm searching desperately for a new seach engine!
More & more the old search engines just turn up paid search sites.
Posted by: martiniNYC | July 22, 2008 11:35 AM
Google Product Search is terrible. As the main blog entry states, it tends to lump in a lot of unrelated items. Some of them are hardly related to the item you searched for. The only time I have been using it lately is just to get a ballpark idea on what an item costs if I initially have no idea.
Also, echoing the sentiments of others above, I tend to limit my shopping to a core group of sites I know and trust.
Posted by: PK | July 22, 2008 4:23 PM
I also look at Cnet, as well as Shopping.com and the coupon site Dealcatcher.com.
Posted by: thm61 | July 23, 2008 2:53 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
I've used www.campusi.com with great success for books and movies. They do have other categories too.