Trend: Empowering the user to make a more informed decision through transparency of information.

While this post introduces Mpire, you can see this trend manifesting itself in travel search companies like FareCompare and FareCast, the real estate wunkerkind Zillow [thanks for the example, Matt], and the real-time traffic predictor Inrix [thanks for the example, Hugh]. What are they putting in the water up there? [Only FareCompare is located outside of the Pacific Northwest]

Mpire started out by building tools for eBay sellers. With its new launch, though, the company is now focused on helping all consumers shop smarter. As Mpire explained “Shopping is too difficult. Consumers want to know what they should be paying, but there are way too many sites. There are way too many choices. There’s not enough confidence in the buying decision.” Mpire brings together listings from eBay, Overstock, Yahoo! Auctions, and Craigslist into one view and adds analytics to help the shopper figure out what he should be paying for the item. Here’s a search for the Garmin GPSMAP 172C. The site just launched, so expect some glitches (hitting the back button just runs the search again, there’s no X to close a pricing window, etc.), but the foundation is solid.

At the core of Mpire is the ability to see the average price for the item, a historical price range, a 30 day price trend (with graph), and the average shipping price for the item. In other words, Mpire is looking at a ton of data, cutting it every which way, and presenting it to the user in a useful format…or as they like to say “we’re the Kelly’s Blue Book for everything else.” One reporter talks about Mpire as a ‘comparison shopping engine for used products,’ but I think that’s only a very small part of the picture.

With all the information Mpire is collecting about auctions and classified listings, there’s an incredible opportunity to slice and dice the data to help shoppers buy more intelligently. Almost seems like a Channel Intelligence for the consumer.

Features to test out:
-Clicking on ‘Search Options’ gives the shopper the ability to refine the results by price, location, and payment options.
-Mpire offers popular eBay searches through list and tag cloud view.
-There are pricing guides for iPods, cell phones, PSPs, Star Wars, and more. And these aren’t the general buying guides we’re all used to. They feature accessories and related products/searches and are put together in a somewhat ‘cool’ fashion that might speak to the eBay community.
-Creating a user account opens up more possibilities, allowing the user to save searches and create watch lists.
-Shoppers can also set price alerts, although I couldn’t figure out how to do so.

As for a business model, Mpire will continue to make money through it’s eBay listing and automation tools, but also launched a Promote It serivce which allows sellers to promote products through the new Mpire search results. These promotional areas are similar to standard ’sponsored listings’ seen throughout the web. The company raised $5.5m from Ignition Partners.

Related to this new launch are the following announcements:
-eBay partners with Mpire to provide data for its collectibles category.
-Matt Hulett joins Mpire as Chairman & CEO. Matt is the former President of Expedia’s Corporate Travel division, founder of AtomFilms, and former president of AtomShockwave.

When I first talked to Dave Cotter (co-Founder & CMO) and Matt Hulett, it took a while to understand why Mpire mattered. The problem was that Dave and Matt were talking about Mpire as a tool for all consumers rather than just an eBay consumers. I had a problem with this idea and I still do. There’s definitely potential for Mpire to grow into a Kelly’s Blue Book for all products, but by only listing and analyzing eBay, Yahoo!, Overstock, and Craigslist sellers, the service didn’t speak to me as a general consumer tool. In fact, coming from the world of shopping comparison engines and not from eBay, the service can be a bit awkward (listings not SKUing up, many ancillary products mixed in with the main products, no product descriptions, no product reviews, no seller ratings, etc.).

So just as in the case of Kaboodle teaming up with eBay, it makes a lot of sense to hear that Mpire’s functionality will be featured through eBay’s new Collector’s Corner. Mpire gets heavy exposure through eBay’s collectibles section which has about 25m page views a month and eBay provides its users with strong data analysis to push shoppers through their buying decisions.

I like the idea of Mpire as a standalone brand, and the company can obviously grab non auction and classifieds data, but in this world of so many powerful online shopping channels, it’s tough to break out. A company can launch an incredibly useful service and generate a ton of buzz through PR, but keeping that initial audience without spending millions and millions on PPC marketing can be extremely difficult. Think Zillow. The company launched with the biggest PR blitz I think I’ve ever seen and traffic to the site went through the roof. But what’s happening now? According to Google Trends, searches for Zillow are about half what they were at the peak…numbers didn’t completely fall off the cliff, but maybe the wow factor has subsided.

I had lunch a couple weeks ago with a a fairly new vertical search company (launched within the last year). Everyone at the table seemed to agree that you can buy $20m worth of clicks and build up traffic to your site or you can build an incredibly powerful user experience, better than anything else out there, and partner to showcase the technology and drive traffic at a low CPA. This doesn’t mean a company can’t build a strong brand, but I wouldn’t expect it to happen overnight.

So play around with Mpire and keep an eye on the company. This trend towards user empowerment and transparency of information is exciting and will continue to gain momemntum. And while I don’t view the service as a general consumer shopping tool just yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if it quickly morphs into such a tool. The idea of buying with confidence is powerful and even if Mpire only covers the eBays and Craigslists of the world, maybe that’s enough for it to become one of the standard sites visited when shoppers are making a buying decision.

Related:
Kaboodling with eBay - June 10, 2006