Using Comparison Shopping Engines to Merchandise
By Rob Wight, President and CEO, Channel Intelligence
You’ve worked hard to merchandise those great gifts for Christmas. So why would you hide them from shoppers looking to buy something special for their loved ones? That is just what some retailers are doing as they send their well-intentioned product data feeds to comparison shopping engines. Proper placement of a seller’s products on comparison shopping engines can make the difference between success in product sales and invisibility.
Currently, two major methods are used for mapping a retailer’s product data to the comparison shopping engines: category-level mapping and product-level mapping. You’ll want to use a product-level mapping system to make sure your products gain maximum visibility among the shoppers who are looking for them.
The basic difference between these two methods for mapping products can be found in the level of detail used to determine the categories where a retailer’s products should appear. Product-level mapping looks at each product to find the correct placement, while category-to-category mapping examines only the category names, assuming that all categories at retailers and comparison shopping engines are the same.
Retailers who use mapping at the product-level are much more likely to see every product found in its optimal place at each comparison shopping engine, regardless of any differences in category names.
The assurance of proper product placement is possible because product-level mapping provides intelligence based on the actual products found in each category for both parties, not simply forcing the match based on category names. It can see that a toy TV for children belongs in the toy category, where parents shopping for their children will find it, not in the broader electronics category where a product defined as a TV would normally be found.
Product-level mapping helps to support a shopping engine’s online plan-o-gram. What are the odds that a department store, for example, would merchandise bath towels with children’s apparel? Not likely, because it would make for an odd shopping experience for the consumer. Plan-o-grams are designed to help store merchandisers group like products together for easy discovery by the consumer.
Marketing categories used online should be thought of like end caps in a store. End caps are used to help decorate or advertise certain products, while leaving the majority of the actual product units in their correct store location.
Essential Guide to eCommerce
DM News
December 07, 2007
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