Via the Yahoo! Shopping Blog, Yahoo! has web 2.0d/social networked the coupon experience with the launch of Yahoo! Coupon Center Beta. Share coupons (email or IM), write comments, vote (thumbs up/down), and even save. 1936 merchants are listed right now. Check it out.

Many of the shopping comparison engines allow merchants to specify ‘Promo text’ within the data feed. Shopzilla, for instance, allows a merchant to add pre-set promotional designations such as ‘Same Day Shipping’, ‘Price Before Rebate’, or ‘Gift with Purchase’. While adding this kind of promotional text is a step in the right direction, what about coupons? Aren’t all online shoppers now trained to look for coupons?

Users of Smarter.com and Yahoo! Shopping no longer have to leave these comparison engines to search for the latest coupon deals.

Smarter.com claims to be “among the first comparison shopping engines that allows [merchants] to integrate coupons at the product level. We’ve found that by including coupon info with your product listings, consumers see more of the ‘big picture’ before determining who to buy from (meaning more qualified leads to you).”

This is a no brainer for the comparison engines, and I’m really surprised that it’s taken so long for this type of coupon integration. See an example here and here. It’s nice to see the little guy innovating.

Yahoo! Shopping, with the data feed of of all data feeds (they accept sooo much information) has long allowed merchants to include promotional text. However, the site is now highlighting ‘Deals’ on product pages - see picture above. Users can click on a green link at the top of the page to see all offers associated with a product.