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 £120m and £140m in revenue in 2005 , and is growing at an annual rate of 30% to 50%.

History

The internet boom of the late 1990s made price comparison profitable.

Price comparison services were initially implemented as client-side add-ins to the Netscape and Internet explorer browsers, and required that additional software be downloaded and installed. After these initial efforts, comparison shopping migrated to the server so that the service would be accessible to anyone with a browser.

Services are now offered by websites dedicated to price comparison and by major portals such as Yahoo!.

Shopping

In the late 1990s, as more people gained access to the internet, a range of shopping portals were built that listed retailers for specific product genres. Retailers listed paid the website a fixed fee for appearing. These were little more than an online version of the Yellow Pages. As technology has improved, a newer "breed" of shopping Web portals is being created that are changing both the business model and the features and functionality offered. These sites do not "aggregate" data-feeds provided from the retailers, they search and retrieve the data directly from each retailer site. This allows for a much more comprehensive list of retailers and the ability to update the data in real-time.

Generic portals and search engines launched similar services and companies that stood to benefit from increased internet shopping (especially credit card and delivery firms) launched similar sites. Many of these services have since closed.

From Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License
Wed Jun 10 23:44:18 2009

Comparison with cell phone companies... which one is pure quality, service plus price?
Q. Of all the phone companies there are for Cell Phones, which one is the best? My personal opinion is T-mobile (www.t-mobile.com) Prepaid to go! and their sidekick LX kicks butt for only $1.00 a day... unlimited!
Asked by viriigrrl of EFNET! tika - Wed Apr 16 21:01:13 2008 - - 5 Answers - 0 Comments

A. T-Mobile is not the best overall. Their is not one cell phone company perfect in everything, like price, or service, or call quality. GSM Carriers (like T-Mobile and Cingular) have issues with good call quality. They will have very scratchy calls and some other issues. Overall, they aren't the best. CDMA carriers like Verizon or Sprint offer more coverage and better call quality, but their price plans seem to come at us a little harder. You will pay more with Cingular or Verizon...but you will have slightly better coverage...and a lot better coverage with Verizon Wireless because they are constantly building.
Answered by Nick - Wed Apr 16 21:11:07 2008

Is there an Australian book price comparison search engine like isbn.nu?
Q. lets you compare prices between many international booksellers but international shipping is often quite slow. Does anyone know of a similar service that just searches Australian booksellers like Dymocks, A&R, Collins etc?
Asked by goosmurf - Mon Aug 21 19:43:47 2006 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments

A. G'day Goosmurf, Thank you for your question. I have not been able to find such an index. However, I can advise of a couple of general engines. Good luck with your search. Regards
Answered by cremedelacreme04 - Thu Aug 24 07:59:28 2006

Is it worth paying extra ?
Q. Hunting around for car insurance, and could just go with the cheapest on a money comparison list - but is that the best option ? For a bit (to a lot!) more some insurers include benefits such as courtesy car & free legal service etc. But is it worth paying the extra for something I might not use ? I notice Direct Line are refusing to be part of these lists because they say they are not accurate comparisons as cheapest price is not necessarily the best deal. Now I know why it's called confused.com! Can anyone help me ?
Asked by Gidob - Thu Sep 6 05:59:12 2007 - - 6 Answers - 0 Comments

A. I wouldn't pay for the legal service, it's highly unlikely that you would ever need it and if you did all you need to to is visit your local CAB for advice. I think the courtesy car is a good idea, I have this on my direct line policy as I would be lost without a car - I live in a village with no bus service - so I think the extra I pay is worth it and it's not much anyway, about 20 a year from what I remember
Answered by ChocLover - Thu Sep 6 06:03:30 2007

See also:

  • Shopping.comShopping.com
    shopping.com
    Compare products, prices and stores.
  • Street PricesStreet Prices
    streetprices.com
    PC component, PDA, and digital camera price index with graphs of prices over time. Includes e-mail alerts when an item drops below the price specified.
  • Google Product SearchGoogle Product Search
    google.com
    Search engine which shows photographs of relevant products. Searches can be restricted by price, type of good, and retailer.
Custom search only price comparison service sites:

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Thu Jun 25 14:40:21 2009
THE CNG FACTOR - Bangkok Post
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From Google News Search: "price comparison service"
Sun Jun 28 15:23:17 2009

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avaren.com
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Residential Telephone Service OECD Basket Price Comparison February 2004 Full size version of Residential Telephone Service OECD Basket Price Comparison February 2004 40 KB GIF file Key Points 10 The price of residential telephone service taking into

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From Yahoo Image Search: "price comparison service"
Mon Jun 29 15:36:42 2009

Telegraph Blogs Technology Do you actually use price ...
blogs.telegraph.co.uk
Telegraph Blogs Technology Do you actually use price ...

unknown

Fri, 08 May 2009 17:50:43 GM

He has what he calls a combined screenscraper system so you don't use one . comparison service. , you use 13 and that gives you the cheapest . price. he says. All the links pay him commission and I defy anyone to actually go through 13 quotes ...

Asiajin Now, Long Phone Conversation Makes You Fly For Free
asiajin.com
Asiajin Now, Long Phone Conversation Makes You Fly For Free

Masaru IKEDA

hu, 02 Jul 2009 16:47:08 GM

EC-Navi[J], a Shibuya-based tech venture running several web . services. such as . price comparison. site for e-commerce users, tied up with Japan's second largest mobile company KDDI, and plans to launch a nationwide cellphone . service. as ...

RUMOR Flash! : Google Probes DEEP Into eBay and Ecommerce Territories!
3rdpoblogs.com
RUMOR Flash! : Google Probes DEEP Into eBay and Ecommerce Territories!

John

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:43:11 GM

Google Product Search (formerly known as Froogle) is a . price comparison service. launched by Google Inc. It is currently in beta test stage. It was invented by Craig Nevill-Manning.​ Its interface provides an HTML form field into which a ...

From Google Blog Search: "price comparison service"
Thu Jul 2 17:29:12 2009