According to the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA), “This year, consumers plan to purchase 3.9 million televisions for Super Bowl Sunday, up more than 50 percent from 2.5 million last year. In addition, viewers plan to purchase 1.8 million pieces of furniture, up from 1.3 million last year.” (via NRF via Shop.org Smartbrief)

Some shopping engines don’t run strong merchandising efforts as they are vertical search engines. It’s not as if you see Google or Yahoo! going gangbusters on a vertical experience for Valentine’s Day or Christmas. But with the shopping engines, we’re talking about products, and I think consumers are very open to, and maybe even want, a very targeted shopping experience for a special occasion.

So which shopping engines are taking advantage of SuperBowl Sunday merchandising? Become & PriceGrabber (through their websites), and Shopzilla (through their email blast).

Become promotes a HDTV section on it’s homepage. Obviously the focus is on HDTVs (allowing consumers to search by size and manufacturer), but Tivos and Home Theater Systems are also highlighted. I especially like the links to Buying Guides and Discussion Forums, but those are a little hidden at the bottom of the page.

PriceGrabber’s SuperBowl Shopping Guide, features 2 anchor sponsors (JC Penney & OneWayFurniture) as well links to pages for a Westinghouse Widescreen TV and a high end Tivo. The real value of the guide, though, comes from the Personal Shopper section. All PriceGrabber has done is filtered its index to grab the good stuff - so Shop for Her brings up the pink jersey, earrings, and women’s Ts, Shop for Pets brings up costumes and rubber footballs for the pooch, and Super Bowl Necessities brings up the slew of high tech gizmos and gadgets that no true SuperBowl party can be without.

Shopzilla doesn’t have a special SuperBowl section, but they did send out a Super Sunday themed email blast last weekend (before my Giants stunned the Packers).