| On the internet, a price comparison service (also known as shopping comparison or price engine) allows individuals to see different lists of prices for specific products. Most price comparison services do not sell products themselves, but source prices from retailers from whom users can buy. In the UK, these services made between £2000m and £220m in revenue in 2009, and is growing at an annual rate of 30% to 50%.
In UK there are many price comparison services and one of this new service is Priceandoffer.co.uk. It is located in London and has been in business since 2006. Priceandoffer.co.uk reports they have more than 6000 unique visitors each month and more than 20000 viewed pages. Now Priceandoffer has more than 600 merchant and, with a SEO campaign, it is going to increase the number of visitors.
Priceandoffer.co.uk began as a price comparison shopping service that specialized in computers, electronics and video games. Building on their success at finding great deals on those products, they have added additional categories including books, movies and music. When comparison shopping for items in any of these categories, Priceandoffer.co.uk is a great shopping to use because it is fast, easy to use and tracks down great prices.
Currently, Priceandoffer.co.uk is organized in the traditional manner of a comparison shopping site, with a directory-style listing of categories, accessible either through the main page listing (which includes the leading subdirectories) or by clicking on the tabs along the top. It also has a general search bar.
To use Priceandoffer, just enter the product name or exact model number into the search box. If a single match is found, you will instantly get the list of merchants selling the item. If there are multiple hits, you are presented with a list of all products matching your search terms, grouped by major categories. Select your product directly if you see it, otherwise choose one of the major category that is most appropriate and you will get a listing of all products that match within that category grouped by sub-categories. This makes it very easy to find your specific product.
Once you select your exact item, you are presented with a list of all merchants offering that product, sorted by price. Priceandoffer.co.uk will automatically give approximate sales tax and shipping costs in addition to the product's price depending by each merchants. It adds these together for your bottom line price, which is very useful since shipping costs and sales taxes can vary significantly between online merchants. Although shipping and sales tax is not included for every single vendor, it is included for the vast majority of them, making Priceandoffer superior to any other shopping bot in this regard.
Like other comparison shopping sites, once you click on a category, Priceandoffer.co.uk walks you through choices to narrow your search down to the product you are looking for, complete with ratings, reviewers by people who bought the product, and a starting price. To compare pricing or see the range, you will need to visit another page. When you finally reach the page for the specific product you want to investigate, “featured merchants” are listed first, followed by the remainder of sellers. Priceandoffer provides a lot of information to shoppers to make informed decisions, including not just merchant reviews, but also reviews from magazines on products, and “experts”.
Once you click on a seller, you are taken to the seller’s website and you purchase the item there. A true comparison shopping site, Priceandoffer is an information center, but is not actually involved in the buying and selling of items; rather they sell space for others to advertise your products. Merchant information is available via a simple click underneath each individual product for sale.
So what makes Priceandoffer different from other comparison shopping sites? There are a number of very useful and interesting options offered. For example, there is a feature to figure in shipping and tax based on your zip code called “BottomLinePrice”. Rebates for individual products are listed with the products. A useful addition is the ability to filter your results at various points during the process, where you can narrow your search by price within categories and subcategories, display only new prices, and track your searches.
Priceandoffer has a rather unique approach to tensuring their database is up-to-date with the latest prices and availability that all comparison shopping sites have. They ask users to report any mistakes they find, especially pricing errors. |
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