Google Merchant Search – is the end for price comparison sites?

June 3rd, 2008 by philip.wilkinson

It had to happen eventually – Google begins moves into the price comparison arena, starting with financial services through it’s new Google Merchant Search feature:

Today, if you type in phrases such as “compare loans”, “cheap credit cards”, and so forth, you get a range of comparison sites from the likes of MoneySupermarket and GoCompare who have spent years getting high rankings in the natural search results or paying a premium for the paid advertising.

Now, Google can’t remove them but it can take a massive piece of the action. Imagine typing those phrases in now and actually getting “google merchant search” results at the top first, in the same way blog and news results currently appear!

It doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to see how this can also apply to utilities, cars, flights, and generic shopping categories like consumer electronics (a la Kelkoo). This is huge! I’ll do a follow up post on this shortly – just wanted to get some first-hand comments and feedback first..

6 Responses

James Penman writes:
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 pm

When MoneySupermarket floated, Mr Boss suggested that they’d provide more editorial content to protect their position. I think the comparison market will move towards the editorial and social with the comparison information aspect of it becoming a commodity. There are legs in the reward angle as well. Certainly think the first generation arbitrage model is buggered by this but then again it’s been dying slowly anyway.
Daniel Tangen writes:
June 4th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

The price comparison itself has become a commodity and to compete in that market now you have to be different in a relevant and credible way, and one way to do that is to provide users with value added content and a community aspect. Time for the comparison market to enter web2.0!
philip.wilkinson writes:
June 4th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

I’m with you guys – social and editorial to enhance the commodity that is price comparison. Daniel – how would you enter web2 as a comparison site?
Daniel Tangen writes:
June 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am

I think there are many ways to approach this, but the key area is to provide the consumer with an appeling reason to use your service and to interact with you. Added value through a community approach where you can tap into the expertise of other users, access to tools that assist you in keeping control of money, and automatic updates of best offers in opted in product areas.

Open social platform is very interesting as far as taking the price comparison sites into web2.0
James Penman writes:
June 9th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

Amazon taking an equity stake in a user generated shopping site. V. web2 …

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-amazon-takes-equity-stake-in-diy-shopping-site-the-talk-market/
Philip Wilkinson writes:
June 9th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

oooh – interesting.. QVC online anyone