While the comparison shopping industry as a whole still retains the main underlying concepts that have made them so popular over the years (after all, why fix something that’s not broken?), merchants will be glad to know that their hard-earned money is going toward constant tweaking done to keep things fresh.

In particular, over the past few weeks we’ve noticed a handful of tweaks among the engines that add to the buying experience without detracting from it at all.

Below we’ll give you a quick rundown of some recent changes that we’ve noticed, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated on future modifications a well:

Pricegrabber has added a Woot-like element to their site (Woot’s motto is “One Day, One Deal”), and feature a section called the Product of the Day which, like Woot, offers a daily, miscellaneous item at a discounted price. How discounted it actually can vary, depending on the day/product.

They’ve also redesigned their search results pages, giving them a more modern web 2.0-ish update, complete with bigger buttons, bigger text, and a more colorful design.

(The first image is the current, newer design, and the one below represents the older design)

Frequent viewers of any news/sports network, e.g. ESPN/CNN, will be familiar with Shopzilla’s latest design change–a product ticker at the top of the page which keeps track of recent transactions made on their site, which a customer can click through and view on their own.

And finally not to be outdone, Google itself has also quietly made a fairly significant change behind the scenes within their login pages, labeled “Performance”.

From here merchants who are on Google Base can finally track how many clicks their products are getting on base-which as we’ve discussed in the past has been a rather confusing issue.

Up until now they’ve been the only major shopping comparison tool that brings in significant traffic to (automatically) lack this feature.

The reasoning being of course, the other engines (i.e. the ones you have to pay to use) have to keep track of how many clicks you get in order to determine how much to change you-you get what you pay for though right?

Speaking of Google then, our good friend Tom the Developer has also made some nifty visual and practical changes to his amazing tool as well:

If you’re a Google Base user looking to improve your results and rankings, his tool provides a great method which details what your competitors are listing and not listng–and best of all, like Google Base, his tool is free for all to use.

They say that there are three certainties in life–death, taxes, and CPC Strategy’s high level of management services.

And it would be a vast understatement to say that the services that our clients have come to expect since our inception would not be possible without a special partner of ours:

Co-founder Chip Arndt and his team at MerchantAdvantage provide an exceptional service that takes the guess work out of comparison shopping, and makes dealing with data feeds much more manageable than it has any right to be. For merchants of all sizes that want to get listed on the shopping engines, Chip’s company offers a tremendous solution for those brave souls willing to tackle the engines on their own.

And for online merchants who are still debating whether or not to listed on the engines, Chip’s latest blog entry may be the tipping point for those who are currently on the fence, as he offers several good reasons to get listed, as well as many great tips on how to prepare your site for such a move:

Clean up your online storefront/website.  Ask your friends to go to your website and ask them this: “If you were a stranger and you came to my website would you buy from me?” If they say no, ask them why and remember that you only have one chance to make a good first impression.

It’s a great read for not only those merchants who aren’t yet on the engines, but it also is a great resource for those already listed wanting more from their campaigns.

It’s that time again, earnings season, where the huge net players not only post their financial results for the current quarter but forecast their outlook for the rest of the year. As the second quarter comes to a close and it grows more apparent that runaway energy costs and decreased confidence in financial institutions has taken a toll on economic growth, many pundits have wondered if the growth of e-commerce would be slowed or reversed by the greater economic landscape. Over the next two weeks I’ll take a look at the four companies, Google, eBay, Overstock, and Amazon to help us gauge where e-commerce is going in the next six to twelve months.

Today’s Spotlight:

Overstock.com announced earnings on Friday, July 18th, reporting losses of 6.5 million dollars on 188.8 million dollars in revenue (+27 percent YoY). Similar to eBay, Overtstock share price dropped dramatically after the announcement (- 15 percent the next trading day) depsite meeting analyst’s expectations for earnings. During the earnings call CEO Patrick Byrne reiterated confidence in the company’s ability to  deliver positive earnings by the end of the year.

CPC’s Thoughts- We shouldn’t read too much into Overstock’s earnings loss for two reasons. First, Overstock has not earned a positive profit since it went public. Second, Overstock’s marketing expenese (probably in the form of PPC since their TV exposure has definitely decreased in the past year) increased significantly during second quarter (+79% YoY or $14.2 million). With that said Overstock.com’s marketing focus on soft goods geared toward the 30-45 female demographic and limited brand cachet allows it to be a good barometer for the overall health of e-commerce as it relates to non-electronics merchants. While the current quarter shows positive signs it should be interesting to see if management can actually deliver on their promises of continued earnings/revenue growth in Q3 and Q4.

It’s that time again, earnings season, where the huge net players not only post their financial results for the current quarter but forecast their outlook for the rest of the year. As the second quarter comes to a close and it grows more apparent that runaway energy costs and decreased confidence in financial institutions has taken a toll on economic growth, many pundits have wondered if the growth of e-commerce would be slowed or reversed by the greater economic landscape. Over the next two weeks I’ll take a look at the four companies, Google, eBay, Overstock, and Amazon to help us gauge where e-commerce is going in the next six to twelve months.

Today’s Spotlight:

eBay announced earnings on Wednesday, July 16th, reporting profits of 460 million (+25 percent YoY) on 2.2 billion dollars in revenue (+20 percent YoY). eBay stock dropped rather dramatically after the earnings announcement (-14 percent the next trading day) despite beating the street’s expectations for both revenue and earnings per share due poor marketplace health metrics. eBay Core (eBay.com) revenue only grew at 13 percent during the current quarter while GMV (Gross Merchandise Value- The total dollar amount of transactions on eBay’s platform) grew at an anemic 8 percent.

CPC’s Thoughts- During eBay’s Q1 earning call, new CEO John Donahoe announced that eBay would be making significant changes to its marketplace to retain and attract buyers and sellers to the site. A number of changes were introduced to the site aimed at increasing inventory and streamlining seller feedback to help to kick start slowing GMV. Despite this, GMV grew in the single digits with overall revenue only buoyed by eBay’s growing Advertising business (Through partnerships with Yahoo and Google). It remains to be seen if the changes made in the first half of the year will have a positive impact on GMV growth during the second half of the year. While the earnings numbers and analyst downgrades are concerning, due to the marketplace changes eBay performance during Q2 should not be used as a yardstick to gauge the health of overall health e-commerce. It should be interesting however to see if merchants impacted by eBay slowing growth and rapid changes will migrate over to the other marketplaces (Amazon, Buy.com, Overstock) or invest in their own brands to compete on the shopping engines.