So Froogle cleaned up some listings…they could have just called me to discuss or send me a ‘thank you’ for pointing out the issues.

I’m happy to see Froogle taking baby steps to cut down on spam. My main example the other day, a search for ‘ipod mini nano‘, returned 225 prices, the first 90+ of which were crap. Do the same search for ‘iPod nano’ today and Froogle returns 101 prices…and…most of the crap is gone…or is it?

Apple sells the iPod nano’ for $199, so these new prices look pretty much in line with what I’d expect:

However, the first merchant listed, Best Buys in Digital Cameras and Electronics has some hefty shipping charges which brings my total cost up a bit. I’m just not sure if I’m willing to pay $199.56 for UPS Ground to CA when the Apple store has a free shipping and a free laser engraving promotion. I’m not feeling that frugal:

The second store, Electronics Bonanza, is at least rated - 4.5/5 - so I’m feeling pretty good. But unfortunately, the iPod nano is out of stock - along with all the other iPods the store lists:

The third store is eBay. Froogle tells me I can get a 2GB iPod nano black or white for $193.95. Unfortunately, I can’t. The ’seller ended the listing early’ according to the website. Anyways, shipping would have been $24.95:

If this were baseball, Froogle would have struck out by now, but I’m too amused to stop.

The fourth store is Beach Camera. Price on Froogle says $193.95, but the price on Beach Camera says $199. Ok, that’s not a good start, but the site has a BBB seal and other ‘credentials’ so I’m willing to continue. The shipping options once again don’t impress me: $14.99 for 8-10 business days, but guess what? This site looks legit. I’m going to end up paying $213.99, but I can actually get the iPod!

The fifth store is another eBay listing for an auction that has ended. Ditto for the sixth store.

The seventh store, PC Connection is legit and there are no big surprises with shipping.

The eighth and ninth stores belong to eCost.com and the tenth store is OnSale.com. Well, it turns out that eCost and OnSale are the same company using 2 different store names (I looked them up in the WHOIS database). Feels a little spammy to me…but both stores…I mean the one store…is legit.

Now I could go on and on and on. Check out how many duplicate stores are listed. Check out PointShop.com which has listings 27 - 31 and is nothing more than an Apple affiliate…ditto for Apple Store USA (listings 34 & 35) - although Apple Store USA direct links to Apple as opposed to sending you to a landing page. The iPod nano on B&H Photo-Video-Pro Audio (listing 36) is back-ordered and estimated delivery is 2-4 weeks. Big Fruit Warehouse (listing 47)…also out of stock. eBay (listing 58)…bidding has ended. BIG surprise.

Mixed in with all these crappy results are some ok ones, but is Froogle providing a quality shopping experience? Also, would you really wanted to be mixed in with these listings if you are legit? Froogle may have gotten rid of some of the spam, but I wouldn’t exactly call these listings clean. Again, I recommend heading over to PriceGrabber, Shopzilla, or Shopping.com where you can see stock status, shipping costs, and tax up front. I’m not saying that the other comparison engine’s listings are perfect, but they are a lot better than what Froogle is showing me.

Which brings up a simple little idea. PriceGrabber, Shopzilla, Shopping.com, and the other shopping comparison engines should submit their listings to Froogle (and Google Base). I saw one PriceGrabber storefront on Froogle (and Google Base) already. All these comparison engines spend a lot of money buying keywords on Google Adwords…by submitting their listings to Froogle, they might get on Google for free (as Google lists some Froogle results at the top of search engine results pages) and at the very least, they would add some quality listings to the mix.

More Froogle Posts:
Froogle Spam - December 4, 2005
Froogle Local Follies - December 4, 2005
Important Holiday Season Happenings - November 26, 2005
Froogle Updates Site - Looks Like a Comparison Engine - October 19, 2005
A Couple Words from Froogle - September 11, 2005