Do any of you do any comaprison shopping activity?

[Brookester]

I'd be interrested to hear as i run a software soluton for this area. I'm looking at improving our product and would like some advice on what you find frustrating / annoying.

[downsouth]

I find it hard to actually believe that results from these sites are not influenced by companies offering payment in exchange for higher/prefered listings.

How does this software actually work???

[Brookester]

I work on the merchant side of things, so look after merchants activity and spend on the sites.

Comparison sites work in 2 ways -

1. CPC- pay for the clicks that the sites generate
2. Affilaite - only pay for the sales that the clicks generate.

In terms of placement the results are based on an algorithm, most sites are based on teh CPC cost, so generally teh ones paying the most go to the top. With careful optimisation it's possible to get better listings without paying through the nose.

Kelkoo does an auction and algorithm so very few people pay the same for their clicks. Pricerunner no the other hand has a flat fee and sites are ordered in terms of CPC cost.