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Yahoo Shopping Introduces iPhone App
Posted by Tien Nguyen - November 17, 2009 at 3:55 pm
It was inevitable that comparison shopping would eventually reach mobile devices.
Amazon currently has an app out where consumers can shop for products on their iPhones, and it’s been reported that an eBay user purchased a Lamborghini as well as a boat on his iPhone as well.
Yahoo then has just announced that they’re introducing their own iPhone app for the Yahoo Shopping platform:
We are pleased to announce the launch of a Yahoo! Shopping iPhone app, which will be downloadable by iPhone users. Because mobile shopping is fairly new to most users, all clicks on your product listings delivered through the Yahoo! Shopping iPhone app will be free of charge until further notice.
We’re not sure how well this will work though, because unlike the marketplaces and eBay, the purchases will be made on the merchant’s webpage which may not be quite as well optimized for mobile browsing–while a customer will never have to leave eBay or Amazon when making a purchase.
Plus, consumers may be more leery making purchases via their mobile devices on a site they’ve never been to compared to more trusted names such as Amazon/eBay.
At least with the latter two, a user’s purchasing information is usually stored/linked to their login, while on a 3rd party site they would have to register for a new account or enter a credit card on their phone, which presents another barrier to purchase.
That may perhaps be why this traffic will be free, but as consumers begin to further adopt mobile technology it may eventually become just second nature.
Update: PriceGrabber follows Yahoo! Shopping’s lead by launching their own iPhone App today – http://www.pricegrabber.com/iphone_promo.php
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
Categories: Amazon, Yahoo Shopping, eBay Tags:
All Shopping.com Payments to Processed by Paypal
Posted by Tien Nguyen - August 2, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Merchants logging into their Shopping.com accounts are now greeted with the following message:
It’s a natural partnership since both companies are owned by parent eBay, but we have to wonder–if it’s not broken, why fix it?
For merchants who already have Paypal accounts linked to their business, this isn’t much of an issue for all they have to do is enter their email/password in order to link up the accounts.
But while Paypal is certainly the leader when it comes to online payment processing, not all businesses will necessarily have an account, creating an extra hurdle along the way or they risk having their products removed from Shopping.com.
There exists some merchants who may also have their own issues or qualms about using Paypal’s system from their personal experiences, making them slightly reluctant to link their Shopping.com accounts to Paypal or even in signing up for an account.
The main issue though is perhaps convenience related, and certainly of Shopping.com’s 5000+ merchants there will be more than a handful who may neglect this step.
So while Shopping.com has decided that the security and reliability advantages that Paypal has over their current system is worth the minor inconvenience to their merchants, freeing themselves up from their own resources, it’ll be surprising if certain issues don’t arise during this process.
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CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
Categories: Shopping.com, eBay Tags:
E-Commerce Outlook – Second Quarter 2008 Earnings – Part 2 – eBay
Posted by Nii Ahene - August 21, 2008 at 3:16 pm
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.
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
