Product Comparison Websites – A Boon to Online Ecommerce Ecosystem

The search feature on the world-wide-web has improved for the past few years and has always worked towards bringing a huge amount of information to the potential customer who spends most of his/her valuable time searching for the stuff that is required to be purchased.

In recent years, many Product Comparison Websites or shopbots or comparison engines have come up in India that compare prices and specifications of products across all categories. They actually have been productive and beneficial for customers and suppliers alike.

There is always a bunch of advantages that come along with using a comparison site.

Benefits of Product Comparison Websites

Product Comparison

To Customers –

Comparison sites always strive towards accumulating as much information as possible when it comes to different type of products under each category. This information is drawn only to be compared.

Be it a few major features or the whole specification sheet that needs to be assessed, comparison sites make specification and feature comparison a walk in the park for the potential customer. The customer can compare similar products of one manufacturer or compare products of different manufacturers at a time.

To Manufacturers –

As far as product comparisons are concerned, manufacturers, companies and businesses also tend to benefit from them. Different products of various brands are compared, giving the much needed recognition to all products equally. Smaller companies tend to benefit more as their products get the chance to get directly compared to the products of market leaders.

At the same time, the new launches get the required attention and publicity among the target audience.

Price Comparison

To Customers –

Comparison sites present a whole lot of information to their users and the best part of all those features is the price element. Prices at which all major e-commerce portals offer a particular product are presented, which in-turn helps the potential buyer to make the decision and go in for the right product.

Along with that, special discounts are also part of the surfing experience that comparison sites offer their users, enabling them to buy their desired product at the best price.

To E-commerce portals –

This feature on comparison sites that enables users to compare prices and also helps the e-commerce sites to draw the attention they are looking for. Potential Customers get an idea of which e-commerce portal offers the best price.

Additionally, new and emerging e-commerce sites tend to benefit the most as they are listed along with other competitors and get evaluated by users that log onto various comparison engines.

Delivery details

To Customers –

Along with product and price details that are compared on comparison sites, the details regarding the delivery of the products are also mentioned. The number of days taken by each e-commerce site to deliver the product to a customer’s doorstep is stated.

Moreover, the status of stock, i.e. the availability of the product on the site is also provided on comparison sites, making it simple for the customer to decide which site to make the purchase from.

To E-commerce Sites –

The very mention of delivery details on comparison sites put direct pressure on all e-commerce sites to figure out their logistics. Customers and the users that come onto the comparison sites can compare alternatives and figure out the differences themselves as e-commerce sites automatically work towards reducing delivery time and make sure that they have stock of their best selling products.

Comparison sites present potential customers with many buying alternatives along with the best prices at which they are available in the market. At the same time, these sites also give equal share of the limelight to all product manufacturers and the e-commerce sites.

This in-turn improves buyer –seller relationship and results in getting the best bunch of benefits to satisfy the demands of customers. Few comparison sites, such as pricedekho.com, junglee.com, mysmartprice.com and ishopper.com have come up with their own search engines where-in users can compare products’ specifications, prices and features making it easy for them to arrive at their buying decision.

[About the Author: Sanjeev Kumar is a Guest Blogger and writes on online shopping and gadget reviews. He is working with a comparison shopping site IndianPrice.com]