Talk:Price engine

I wholeheartedly agree. Although I have never heard the term "online shopping directory", what is being described here, and being linked to, is indeed a price engine (shopping engine). The online shopping directory page should link to this page, and not visa versa.

- DisneyPaul

Not really. There are plenty of online shopping directories, try "online shopping directory" in Google. For example - shopsafe.co.uk, shobby.co.uk and lots more.

Shopping directory and price engine may have something in common, but they are two different beings altogether.

There are price comparison engines, price comparison shopping sites powered by these different engines (affiliate sites), deal sites, and ones that combine price comparison with deals, coupons, rebates, etc. It goes even further if you consider current "mashups." Then of course there are actual merchant and online retailers that sell the products rather than being middlemen but I don't know what scope you're aiming at here. --Jā 16:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

If I wanted to add a link to new price comparison engine, how would I go about doing this legally?

I have some experience of working with price comparison engines, shopping portals, etc, and would like to take a stab at building up this article. I think price comparison engines are a complex enough service on their own to deserve a separate article. Also, should I build articles on the leading brands in this sector? I've seen a lot of comments saying that these are spam and don't want to waste my time if they will just be deleted.

Improving this category - answer!

I think expanding this category would be great, I would certainly include leading brands, however, like you I have a great deal of knowledge, some smaller less mature sites are equally as good and should be mentioned, some of these may end up being be bigger than the existing leading brands, educating visitors and providing information about price comparisons, portals and the truth behind them is always useful content for visitors reading the articles.

I once read about price comparison engines being unfair, they do show multiple prices for the same product across say 10 shops, however the top results are not always the cheapest price, they maybe be top as they advertiser (retailer) is willing to pay a higher price per click - you could expand on this type scenario...!

OK, I've built Price comparison service and redirected both this article and online shopping directory over there, as price comparison is a far more standard term. I agree that smaller sites should be given coverage, though part of the problem is a lack of information on them. The main ones (at least from a UK perspective) are Kelkoo, Shopping.com, PriceRunner and Froogle. When it comes to educating users, I'm not sure where the line is crossed between being a PR machine and useful information.Blowski 21:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]