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Shopzilla is an online shopping search engine, formerly known as BizRate. The company operates to provide clients with product information on price, availability and ratings (bizrate.com, 2005). With more than 25 million products from over 45,000 stores, Shopzilla.com is argued to be one of the largest, fastest and most accurate shopping search engines on the Web (bizrate.com, 2005). The online company generates revenue from the stores that pay to be listed on Shopzilla's website (bizrate.com, 2005). In return, Shopzilla ensures that stores that pay for leads appear more prominently than those that don't, when their offers are equally relevant to a shopping search query. Additionally, Shopzilla is a leading e-commerce research company and acquires proceeds by selling marketing research (bizrate.com, 2005).
Shopzilla was founded in 1996, under the name BizRate.com Inc. (bizrate.com, 2005). At the end of 2004, BizRate.com, Inc. changed its corporate name to Shopzilla, Inc. and launched, shopping search engine website, Shopzilla.com (shopzilla,com, 2005). The corporate re-branding was executed to better position Shopzilla as a broad-based shopping site (bizrate.com Inc, 2004).
A study conducted by Yahoo and ACNielsen, in 2002, found that online shopping sales were increasing as a result of faster internet speed connections (Lorek, 2002). Accordingly, Shopzilla (then BizRate) recorded significant growth in the number of visitors to its website at this time (Lorek, 2002).
In 2004 the 'comparison shopping site' industry saw a significant number of mergers and acquisitions (Mangalindan, 2004). This saw Shopzilla bought by media company E.W. Scripps, for $525 million (Mangalindan, 2004). In the short term Scripps intended to operate Shopzilla as an independent division and invest in further growth of the search engine (Waters, 2005).
According to Patti Freeman Evans, a retail analyst with the technology consultant Jupiter Research, Shopzilla's current features are a significant improvement on BizRate's earlier services (Tedeschi, 2004). Such features include a Customer Certified Ratings Program, which is available to retailers to promote, track and improve their customer satisfaction performance (shopzilla.com, 2005).
Shopzilla further provides shopping solutions to potential publishing or content site clients (shopzilla, 2005). These opportunities include:
In addition, Shopzilla offers 'Banner and Email Advertising' opportunities, which are ideal for online marketers who are seeking customer acquisition (shopzilla.com, 2005).
Shopzilla focuses on continuing to find a vast range and quantity of products, including difficult and unique searches, as according to Chuck Davis, president & CEO of Shopzilla Inc., those are the searches, which ultimately create consumer loyalty (BizRate.com Inc, 2004).
Further information on Shopzilla:
Similar Online Companies include:
BizRate.com Inc. (2004) “BizRate.com changes name to Shopzilla, with more stores and new search features,�? Press Release, May 16.
Lorek, L (2002) "Faster Computer Connections to Lead to Increase in Online Shopping," Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, Washington, Nov 30, pp. 1
Mangalindan, M. (2005) “The Next Generation Of Price-Comparison Sites; As Competition Heats Up, Services Add Protection From Fraud, Bigger Discounts, Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition, N.Y., Sep 14, ISBN 00999660
Shopzilla.com (2005) retrieved, Oct 21, 2005, from, http://www.shopzilla.com/.
Tedeschi, B. (2004) “For BizRate, A New Identity And a New Site, Shopzilla.com,�? New York Times, Late Edition, East Coast, N.Y., Nov 15, pp. C.4, ISBN 03624331
Waters, R (2005) “Scripps joins race for online shop sites," Financial Times, London: Jun 7, 2005. pp. 23, ISBN 03071766
Carlene Daley 23:29, 26 Oct 2005 (EST)
