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Pricegrabber Purchased for $485M
w98 writes "GUS PLC, the parent company of Experian Interactive, recently announced the acquisition of PriceGrabber.com for $485M plus expenses. Don Robert, Chief Executive Officer of Experian, commented: 'As a trusted and preferred comparison shopping destination, PriceGrabber.com has a leading position in a fast-growing market. When combined with the complementary skills, expertise and scale of Experian, in both Interactive and Marketing, we are very excited about the future growth prospects for PriceGrabber.com.'"
"we're very excited about pumping paying stores' ads right to the top of search results, with no regard to actual accuracy or trustworthiness of the vendors, while simultaneously trying to give the impression of validity."
They could have bought it for 20% less if they'd shopped around.
they should've froogled it, first...
Those who can, do. Those who can't, go into business for themselves.
While we who eat and breathe web stuff are not as likely to be taken in by the tactics pricegrabber and their ilk use to pump their paying customers and favourites products, this is apt to help them in terms of dealing with not so savvy folk cruising the net for their shopping. It's been shown that many people can't tell the difference between "real" reviews of products and bogus articles that are really nothing more than the web equivalent of infomercials. The reality is now the web is crowded with many people who have no concept of what they are doing out there and who literally believe much of what is written. This plays perfectly to that crowd. There's a reason spam goes on, and that is there is an awful lot of people out there who really seem to believe you can get a new Honda for forwarding e-mail. You go figure it out.
Talk about synergy! "Please wait for the custom price individually selected just for you, while we run up a quick check of your credit history..."
I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
This is how Pricewatch differentiates itself from Froogle. Froogle gets its ads from everyone and everywhere, with little or no restrictions on who lists what. Pricewatch has a pretty stringent set of rules:
(from the link)
We've heard about Pricewatch et al trying to stop unscupulous camera dealers, but what has Froogle done? Nothing. That's because it really has no defined way to block out the baddies.
I started using Pricewatch several years ago. I enjoyed a short stint with Froogle because of its better search capabilities, but I'm back to be a Pricewatch junkie for life. Long live Pricewatch!
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Pricewatch started out specializing in computer equipment and did a poor job of picking up the consumer side, something that pricegrabber has done fairly well. The interface over at pricewatch also does not lend much to the credence of the site. While it is a bad policy, many regular internet users judge the "site by its cover" and pricegrabber just looks "prettier" then pricewatch.
There are also the sorting functionality with PG over PW. Some of the breakdowns on PW leave a lot to be desired and can make finding items really hard. Not to mention a few sites have figured out how to regularly screw up the PW listing for their items. I am not sure how long they have had the rating system for at PW for stores; however, I do not remember it always being there and that is something else your normal consumer is going to want.
Basically, I really avoid both sites all together anymore. More times then not Newegg or ZZF (ZipZoomFly) have the cheapest prices or close enough to it that I am not going to start ordering my computer parts from every little corner of the web. With most consumer items, I usually research stuff through other online sites and then wind up purchasing from a place I regularly shop at so if and when I have to call CS, it looks better then the schmuck who orders once from a site and never again.
I also think that many of these sites begin to lose some of their early patrons for the reason I no longer use them much. People begin to notice the same three or four stores constantly having the lowest prices and they just proceed to go to those stores and cut out the middle man. Along the same vein, people order things a few times from the store they once never heard of and before you know it they trust the store (especially if they have never had a problem) so they continue to go back there instead of using PW or PG.
In the end I basically search a few sites each time I am going to order something. If it is books or DVDs, I will check Amazon, DeepDiscountDVD, Buy.com, Wal-Mart, Costco (because I have a card), and Overstock. Computer stuff is pretty much Newegg and ZZF, but sometimes I will take a trip to Microcenter if I want something now.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Obviously they are if there is $400+ million dollars in interest by the purchaser... but I know that these sites poll only a select few online stores and the prices are rarely all that great.
Occasionally I will check out what pricegrabber or mysimon has to say, but most likely it will point me to Amazon.com and a moderate price as my best bet. These types of sites really just seem like the *worst* possible place to compare prices due to their discretion of the included stores, this system just seems to ooze opportunities for corruption. Constantly pit two big sites against sites they know have higher prices and collect a nice kickback from the big sites.
A trustworthy and all-inclusive (or at least as close as possible) price comparison site would be very welcomed though. Maybe this will be it... heh, who am I kidding, if they are shelling out $485 mil they plan on raping folks for everything they got in any way they can.
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