Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Let Net Find Lowest Price
Dan Ciporin made me feel a bit sheepish last week when he asked which washing machine I had just bought from a local electronics chain over the Internet. He took the make and model information and clicked through the French site of Shopping.com, the company of which he is chief executive. Lo and behold, Shopping.com showed me that I could have saved US$135 on my washer-dryer at a small Paris retailer, if only I had done some comparison shopping on the Internet. At least I am not alone. Shopping.com research shows that among people who buy online, only 18 percent do price-checking on a site like Ciporin's.
European Competition: Ciporin plans to officially open his French outpost, which is still being tested, in early April, to be followed by one for Germany before September. They will both be run from London, where he already has a British version. Started in 2000, it accounted for 15 percent of the company's sales last year and is, he said, "very profitable."
Europe already has a dominant comparison-shopping site, Kelkoo, which is based in Paris and operates across most of the Continent and in Britain and which Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) bought last year. But there is no prominent No. 2, and Ciporin says he believes that Shopping.com can take the spot with little effort. Already, the company says, it has signed up 70 percent of the top
50 retailers in France.
The American and British use of credit cards and the Internet are the keys to e-commerce. The French and German cultures are different, making less use of both credit cards and the Internet, for example, making Shopping.com's success here less predictable.
So why don't most online purchasers comparison-shop now? My own reason is probably a combination of laziness and ignorance. But Ciporin's demonstration in a Paris hotel meeting room gave me an education in how easy it is to save a few euros.
Three International Sites: In Ciporin's view, it is not enough to "Google" a product before you buy. Search engines return tens of thousands of Web site choices that are too general or too off-topic, or simply too numerous, to be helpful. He calls them, in business-speak, "not very actionable," unlike dedicated comparison sites like his.
With about 20 million monthly visitors, Shopping.com -- the result of the 2003 merger of Dealtime.com and Epinions.com -- is the third- largest e-commerce site in the United States, behind Amazon.com and eBay, the company says.
When Ciporin has all three international sites up and running, he expects to be able to offer price comparisons not just within a country but also between countries, leading to another potential way to save money.
Even when the French site opens for business in April, Shopping.com expects that around 20 percent of the retailers signed up will not be strictly French but pan-European merchants.
And Ciporin is confident that he can overcome what could be his biggest handicap: He does not own the Internet domain names www.shopping.fr and www.shopping.de.
To get to the French and German sites, you will have to type in www.shopping.com. Your browser and computer indicate which country you are connecting from, and Shopping.com will redirect you to the appropriate language site. Of course, if your browser thinks that you are in France and you want the British site, you will still be able to click through to it, Ciporin said.
Common Meaning: Perhaps the inestimable value of having the shopping.com site to begin with is that "shopping" is a word that conveys the correct meaning to both French and Germans. Ciporin said that may balance out that domain name drawback.
The owners of the .fr and .de addresses have, of course, done their best to get Shopping.com to pay big money for the privilege. Ciporin isn't having any of it. Amazon.com, eBay and local retailers like FNAC in France already have prosperous Internet businesses in Europe. But the price comparisons, Ciporin said, are the key. "People don't want to feel had," he said. Tell me about it.
Brought to you by Guardian eCommerce.
European Competition: Ciporin plans to officially open his French outpost, which is still being tested, in early April, to be followed by one for Germany before September. They will both be run from London, where he already has a British version. Started in 2000, it accounted for 15 percent of the company's sales last year and is, he said, "very profitable."
Europe already has a dominant comparison-shopping site, Kelkoo, which is based in Paris and operates across most of the Continent and in Britain and which Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) bought last year. But there is no prominent No. 2, and Ciporin says he believes that Shopping.com can take the spot with little effort. Already, the company says, it has signed up 70 percent of the top
50 retailers in France.
The American and British use of credit cards and the Internet are the keys to e-commerce. The French and German cultures are different, making less use of both credit cards and the Internet, for example, making Shopping.com's success here less predictable.
So why don't most online purchasers comparison-shop now? My own reason is probably a combination of laziness and ignorance. But Ciporin's demonstration in a Paris hotel meeting room gave me an education in how easy it is to save a few euros.
Three International Sites: In Ciporin's view, it is not enough to "Google" a product before you buy. Search engines return tens of thousands of Web site choices that are too general or too off-topic, or simply too numerous, to be helpful. He calls them, in business-speak, "not very actionable," unlike dedicated comparison sites like his.
With about 20 million monthly visitors, Shopping.com -- the result of the 2003 merger of Dealtime.com and Epinions.com -- is the third- largest e-commerce site in the United States, behind Amazon.com and eBay, the company says.
When Ciporin has all three international sites up and running, he expects to be able to offer price comparisons not just within a country but also between countries, leading to another potential way to save money.
Even when the French site opens for business in April, Shopping.com expects that around 20 percent of the retailers signed up will not be strictly French but pan-European merchants.
And Ciporin is confident that he can overcome what could be his biggest handicap: He does not own the Internet domain names www.shopping.fr and www.shopping.de.
To get to the French and German sites, you will have to type in www.shopping.com. Your browser and computer indicate which country you are connecting from, and Shopping.com will redirect you to the appropriate language site. Of course, if your browser thinks that you are in France and you want the British site, you will still be able to click through to it, Ciporin said.
Common Meaning: Perhaps the inestimable value of having the shopping.com site to begin with is that "shopping" is a word that conveys the correct meaning to both French and Germans. Ciporin said that may balance out that domain name drawback.
The owners of the .fr and .de addresses have, of course, done their best to get Shopping.com to pay big money for the privilege. Ciporin isn't having any of it. Amazon.com, eBay and local retailers like FNAC in France already have prosperous Internet businesses in Europe. But the price comparisons, Ciporin said, are the key. "People don't want to feel had," he said. Tell me about it.
Brought to you by Guardian eCommerce.
