Posts tagged comparison services
App review: iBarcode for iPhone
Jan 23rd
The app compares prices for the US, UK, Germany and France though you need to change your preferred market in the settings section, otherwise it defaults to Germany.
You can either search by keyword, or use the iPhone camera (this works on all iPhones) to scan the barcode and return matching product results:
You then need to hover the phone over the barcode, until it is lined up with the arrows on screen, which can be a fiddly job:
Once this has been done, matching results from a range of retailers so you can compare prices for the item:
The problem with the search results for me is that prices were shown in Euros, despite my having set the UK as the preferred country, and the names or logos of retailers are not shown next to results, which makes it harder to decide which result to click on.
Clicking on the link takes you to the retailers’ product page, and most I tried were desktop pages, which makes it less likely that a customer will make a purchase straight from the phone. This happens even for retailer like Amazon that have mobile-optimised sites:
The app displays a beta logo, and this may explain some of the errors I came across when using the app. All the keyword searches I tried, including ‘iPod’ which should return loads of results, produced this screen:
Conclusion
I’m not sure that an app should be in beta when it is released, especially when you are charging users to download it. If people get the app and try it, and find it doesn’t work so well, then this means that many will not use it again, and may leave negative reviews, deterring others from using it.
I think that shopping comparison services are potentially very useful for mobiles, and anything that avoids the need for users to spend time typing in product details is an improvement.
Barcode scanners are one thing that makes it easier to quickly find price comparisons, though I found the camera functions on both the Amazon and Barnes & Noble apps, which allow you to find matching products by taking a picture if a DVD cover or book, easier to use, though this may be easier on an iPhone 3GS.
The price is another issue here. OK, 59p for the app isn’t going to break the bank, but if you are looking to earn commissions through price comparison, it makes sense to get as many users as possible. Charging a fee, however small, will mean fewer users.
It is a potentially useful app, but the various bugs / faults need to be ironed out first, while I think the company needs to think about making it free in order to attract more users.
UPDATE: Wolfram from Apnoti tells me that a couple of the issues I mentioned in the review are, the prices displaying in Euros, and keyword search not working, were the result of a UK server issue. I tried the app again, and these two problems have been fixed now.
I also asked why there is a 59p price tag on the app:
With iBARCODE we don’t just query the API from Google Shopping or any other provider but we query product prices on demand from all relevant merchants directly and in the moment when the user starts the price search.
By doing it this way, we ensure that prices are most accurate and up-to-date and consumers can make the right purchase decision. Due to the fact that we have immense server costs to enable
price requests in real-time we made the decision to make it a paid app.
Price comparison sites need to work on usability
Jan 23rd
Webcredible’s report points out a decline in the popularity of comparison sites, with Moneysupermarket.com, Gocompare.com, and Confused.com experiencing an average fall of 30% in visitor numbers between January and April this year. The market is also becoming ever more competitive, with newspaper websites such as The Daily Mail setting up comparison services.
Here are some areas where comparison sites can improve:
Presentation of results
Four of the sites present results in columns providing ticks and text to show which areas are covered, and showing as much information as possible for easy comparison, as in this example from Moneysupermarket.com:
However, uSwitch provides less information on its results pages, forcing users to click the link for more details, something which slows the process and is likely to frustrate some customers:
Filtering and sorting results pages
The ability to manipulate search results is crucial, as it allows customers to make more sense of results and eliminate the policies they are not interested in to produce a more manageable number.
Moneysupermarket.com’s results page fails miserably here, as it offers no options at all to sort or filter, just a compare feature which lets you select up to five policies. With 50+ insurance products on display, sorted only by price, this is asking customers to do a lot of work to find a suitable policy.
Gocompare.com provides filters but doesn’t remove irrelevant products from the results page, which isn’t helping customers to narrow their choice of polices.
In the example below, I have selected the ‘legal assistance’ and ‘home emergency’ filters but it still displays policies that don’t match these filters as the first three results, when more relevant policies are displayed further down the page:
Confused.com provides a better example, greying out the policies that don’t match the search filters, making it easier for users to find relevant results:
Retrieving quotes
While looking through some of these sites, my quotes timed out, and getting back in to find my details was way too difficult.
Having spent time entering address details, occupation, the number of rooms in my house and so on for a quote, the last thing I want to do is go back and enter it all again.
Making it easy for customers to go back and retrieve quotes seems an obvious thing to do, but Moneysupermarket.com doesn’t even provide an option to retrieve home insurance quotes, while both Comparethemarket and uSwitch required the quote reference number.
If you happen to have forgotten this, as in this example from uSwitch, then the only option is to start again:
Gocompare.com and Confused.com took a more sensible approach to the problem, asking for personal details which are not likely to be forgotten:
This is a much better approach, and makes it much more likely that customers will buy the policy from the site. Not proving easy options to retrieve quotes places an unnecessary obstacle in front of customers.
Google introduces Product Search results for iPhone
Jan 23rd
If you try a few product related searches on Google.com from an iPhone browser, shopping results will now appear, as in this search for an iPod Touch:
Clicking on shopping results gives you a list of matching products, as well as a summary of the price ranges on offer:
Pages for individual products, such as the one below for an 8GB iPod Touch provide some very useful information for mobile shoppers; a summary of the product, the minimum and maximum prices available from retailers, a very useful chart which provides a summary of review scores, as well as a link to all the technical information you will ever need:
The number of reviews on offer is impressive, and makes the service very useful for shoppers who may need reassurance about a product they are buying. I’ve looked at other mobile comparison services, and this range of reviews can only be matched by Reevoo’s iPhone site.
For this iPod, users can read all 204 product reviews if they wish, though some are more useful than others. For some reason, someone has given the product a four star rating and left a review even though they haven’t opened the box yet.
This is where a ‘was this review helpful?’ option, as used to great effect by Amazon, would be useful. With this many reviews, people need help sorting the wheat from the chaff.
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The price comparison part of the product search is useful too, and the simple sorting options mean it is easier to make sense of results, allowing you to sort by the best prices, or by seller rating. There are a lot of sellers listed, especially for a popular product like the iPod, so these options are essential.
Once you have found the retailer and price that suits you, clicking on the link will take you through to that seller’s product page (in most cases), where it is possible to purchase the product, though most e-commerce sites aren’t especially usable on mobile and entering address and payment details can be a difficult task.
Product Search for mobile is a useful service though, and it compares favourably with other mobile price comparison sites I have reviewed. It also provides one more reason for retailers to get their items submitted to Google Base to get listed in product searches.
Mobile site review: Sccope
Jan 23rd
Sccope launched the web version of its comparison service back in October, and only launched the dedicated iPhone site last week. It also provides a useful SMS price comparison service.
I’ve been looking at the iPhone site to see how it compares with other mobile comparison services…
The home screen is clear and easy to use. You can simply search by product or keyword, or else limit that search to a particular product group. Sccope currently provides price information for products like books, DVDs and electrical goods.
Sccope is an offshoot of Cogenta, a company which provides pricing intelligence for UK retailers to help them to keep up with competitors. The mobile service uses this pricing information, and according to CEO Douglas Orr, this gives them the edge over other price comparison sites:
This morning, for instance, we collected over 3.5m prices from retailer’s websites. Unlike comparison sites which rely on feeds from retailers and can often be out of date, we are in control of making sure that the content is there and up to date. Prices change rapidly in the retail business, and this gives us an advantage.
I tried searching for an iPod Touch on Sccope, and it does provide a good range of prices, including many from high street retailers, which is more useful when you are shopping offline and want to make sure you are getting a good deal.
Offline shopping is made easier by the store location option, which shows the nearest retail outlets on Google Maps, a good use of the iPhone’s capabilities.
It also does a good job in providing the information that people are looking for, product description, whether the item is in stock (on the website at least), as well as delivery charges. It will also provide an address and phone number for the nearest store.
Sccope has produced a very good site for mobile users, which delivers a good user experience, clear pricing information, with some extra touches like mapping which the other mobile comparison sites don’t have.
One thing that is lacking though, and which would be a very useful service for shoppers, is user product reviews. Here, Reevoo has an advantage due to the sheer range of reviews it can provide for most electrical products. Sccope needs to find a way to provide this kind of information to make it a more compelling service.
Unlike some others, Sccope does provide links to purchase products from retailers’ sites via the iPhone’s web browser, though Douglas acknowledges the potential mobile usability issues users can encounter once they leave the app and enter a website that hasn’t been optimised for small screens:
Only about one in a hundred retailers has a site that makes it OK to buy from on mobile. Others will have to respond eventually or Amazon, which has produced a usable mobile e-commerce site, will snap up the market.
There are other potential solutions to overcome this issue, such as services like Blackberry Wallet, which stores users’ payment details securely and saves them the work of typing details in on a mobile.
Sccope has the same obstacles to overcome as other mobile comparison services, in working out a way to monetise the service, especially if users are buying offline. Sccope is still in beta though, and it is early days for mobile commerce:
It’s early days but we want to establish a presence on mobile ,and can earn money
through banner ads to cover costs by delivering customers with a high
level of purchase intent. We are looking at the longer term picture.At the moment it is about price checking, but long term we want to
create a proper shopping and browsing experience on mobile. If we can
provide a compelling experience it can work. A good mobile app should encourage ‘data-snacking’ – people on the move, waiting for trains etc, who want to check prices, do some research and come back to it later and pick up where they left off.
Sccope has produced a very promising mobile service so far, and has done very well to get some useful promotion from Vodafone, which included it in its mobile application platform. There is an iPhone app coming out soon, so Sccope could be one to watch out for.
5 places where e-business owners can find cost savings
Jan 23rd
If you run a business, here are 5 areas where you’ll likely be able to discover some cost savings.
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Advertising. While I’m not one to necessarily advocate cutting an advertising budget for no reason other than it’s easy, I have seen that when times are good, businesses worry a lot less about waste in their advertising budgets than they should. Some don’t even monitor ROI closely and some make little effort to optimize campaigns.
There is a lot of scope to track ROI and optimize campaigns to ensure that budgets are getting the most bang for the buck, and now is the perfect time to take advantage of it.
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Hosting. I’d estimate that over half of my clients have hosting packages that can only be described as “overkill“. Some have a dedicated server when they would be fine with a VPS and others have basic hosting accounts that they’re overpaying for because they never bothered to look for a better price.
Whether your hosting costs are significant or minimal, every dollar wasted hurts a business in times like this, and taking a closer look at your hosting situation can’t hurt.
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Equipment and supplies. Every business needs equipment and supplies, no matter how much “conservation” is implemented. Yet many don’t shop around for the best deal, despite the fact that the wonderful world of ecommerce and shopping comparison services make it easy to find great bargains.
Additionally, the wide array of refurbished equipment that is widely available (from computers to printers), often with the same warranties as new equipment, offers a great opportunity for added savings.
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Software. How much of the software that you pay for offers functionality that you can get for free? You might be surprised to learn the answer – a lot of it.
I just bought a new computer and was planning to purchase a copy of the WS_FTP Pro FTP client, which I use on my other machines. But I decided to try Filezilla, an open-source FTP client, and was pleased to find that it does the job just as well, saving me more than $50.
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Operations. A tough economy is a great promoter of efficiency. What parts of your business aren’t operating like a well-oiled machine? You have reason to find out because operating inefficiencies are often a source of great waste.
From customer service to business development, there are plenty of places where you are likely to find room for improvement – and savings.
Case in point: I hate bookkeeping and had always paid to have someone else do it. Yet a couple of years ago I started using QuickBooks. Ever since then, I have been doing my own bookkeeping with minimal pain. As an added bonus, I’ve saved money on accounting costs because my accountant has far fewer “messes” to clean up at the end of the year.
Bottom line: waste is all around us and using the economic crisis as a reason to take out the trash can be good for business.
You just have to be willing to look and do a little housecleaning.