Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Price Comparison Site?
Price Comparison sites which are also known as on-line shopping comparison or price engines allow users to view the current prices for a single product from multiple retail stores. The prices displayed are normally sourced from the individual stores.
How Do They Know The Prices?
Comparison sites can use many different ways to gather prices:
- Retailers list their products on the comparison website by matching their own products against the comparison sites current database of products.
- Data feeds, basically a list of products and prices formatted in a set way, this data feed is then imported into the comparison site.
- Comparison sites can scan retailers websites retrieving the displayed prices along with product names and descriptions.
What’s in it for them?
Comparison sites don’t charge visitors to use the service but instead they normally receive payments from the retailers, either a flat fee for being included, a small fee each time the comparison site sends a visitor to them by clicking a link or a percentage of the sale value when the visitor makes a purchase.
What should I look out for when using a comparison site?
Check the first displayed price is the lowest: Some comparison sites do not display your price results in ascending order.
Follow the link to visit the actual store and confirm the price displayed is up to date.
Check how many different retailers are displayed in your results, less than 5 is not really a good comparison.
Why is this Price Comparison Site not listed?
A lot of Price Comparison Site are “powered by” the same data, these sites are often referred to as “white label”. Whilst these “white label” sites can be very good they need to be more than just a Price Comparison Site with a cosmetic makeover, Price Locator look for features that make comparing prices easier.
Searching for a price on a dozen different Price Comparison Site that are all powered by the same data is a pointless waste of time.
If you feel we have missed a Price Comparison Site that you feel should be featured please contact us.
