Yahoo! Shopping was running a test on a new homepage design, but it now seems to be official.

Old look:

New look:

Sadly the rest of the site hasn’t changed. But you have to start somewhere…

No, I’m not talking about dollars, I’m talking about saving the environment.

Yahoo Shopping now has a Green Shopping section (to complement the incredible Yahoo! Green). PriceGrabber has Shop Green. TheFind has TheFind Green. MSN Shopping has Shop Green.

While I’ll let these companies quibble about the size of their carbon footprints, what’s important is that these ‘mini-sites’ can be extremely effective merchandising efforts. The other shopping engines all have green products in their databases. I’d expect to see additional ‘green’ launches in the near future.

P.S. Joe, Yahoo! Green has a link to a Green Gift Guide. You’ve gotta get a more prominent link in there back to Yahoo Green Shopping. Pristine Planet might be a good site, but that should be your link!

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.

A lot of people missed the emails sent by the shopping engines about seasonal rate increases, so here’s a quick summary:

Become.com - no rate increase
Yahoo! Shopping - no rate increase
Google Product Search - free
TheFind - free
Pronto - not holiday related, but there will be some adjustments, both up and down (Nov. 15)
Smarter.com - 20% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 1 - Dec. 31)
Shopzilla - 25% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 12 - Dec. 31)
PriceGrabber - 25% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 1 - Jan. 15)
NexTag - 25% rate increase for all categories (Nov. 1 - Jan. 2)
Shopping.com - 10-25% rate increase depending on category (Nov. 15 - Dec. 31)

Before everyone takes this post the wrong way, yes, I was poking fun at how Yahoo! made a big deal out of Shop by Color in a press release, considering that other shopping engines have had this for a while, but I wasn’t poking fun at the actual funtionality. Shopping by color makes shopping fun. And yes, I’m being very serious. At the same time, merchants are horrible at listing all color options in data feeds, so this is a great benefit to them, too. All around, a great addition to Yahoo! Shopping. Shopzilla and Shopping.com, engines that have to pay for their traffic, should be adding features like this to make the user experience more attractive. Yes, they will still have to pay the gatekeeper (Google) for the initial click, but anything these shopping engines can do to convince users to come back directly the next time is worth it.

15 months after Shopwiki launched Shop by Color…
11 months after Become launched Shop by Color…
10 months after Smarter launched Shop by Color…
9 months after TheFind launched Shop by Color…

Yahoo! launches Shop by Color as a result of an internal coding competition.

Yahoo! Shortcuts must be working for searchers and for Yahoo! Starting last week, I noticed Yahoo! prompting me a lot more to search for coupons, flights, hotels, and movie showtimes. While shortcuts have been around for a while, this is the first time I can remember Yahoo! teaching me use them.

I’m used to getting this after a generic search:

But these showed up when I went to search.yahoo.com or my.yahoo.com:

If you want to learn more about these vertical search results creeping into the main results, check out the series I wrote for SearchDay: Yahoo! Shortcuts, Google OneBox, Microsoft Instant Answers, and Ask Smart Answers

Talked with Rob Solomon, General Manager and Vice President of Yahoo! Shopping, for a quick holiday shopping update…

On Traffic…
“On Thursday, we saw year over year traffic growth of 63% and on Friday we saw growth of 52%. We were expecting growth in the 20-30% range.”

On Hot Products…
“Xbox 360 is an incredibly popular search term, but no one has it. You can buy it at auction for 2-4x list price [Maybe Yahoo! Shopping should put a link up to Yahoo! Auctions on that search results page] iPod nanos, and the iPod itself. Digital cameras. Also, shoes are very popular, with Puma as a stand out brand, rising to the top 20.

On Popular Toys…
-Roboraptor – a robotic dinosaur, this year’s Robosapien
-Darth vader voice changing mask
-The Star Wars Mr. Potato Head Dolls - Darth Tater and Spud Trooper
-Leapfrog products
-‘Shout’ Dancing Elmo
-Bratz dolls.

On the Shoposphere…
“When we launched, there were a lot of great lists created across different themes. Now, a lot of holiday thematic lists are being created; top holiday movie lists, toy lists, wish lists, things people lust after, things people want. We had theorized that themes would be important - the holiday season, Valentine’s day, etc., and people seem to be tapping into [that idea]. We’re really pleased with how it’s taken off. It’s exceeding expectations and being viewed in bigger numbers than expected.”

“We also hoped it would tap into the long tail of products as we now have 100m products on Yahoo! Shopping, and if you look into the lists you will see a good assortment of products that you never would know existed. As people consume and syndicate their lists, it will help with retention and it will spread the word [about the offerings on Yahoo! Shopping]. The reason we created the Shoposphere was to take our notion of Yahoo! Shopping and extend it anywhere. This is a big part of our strategy.”

“Pick lists are definitely a twist on traditional reviews as reviews used to be a one to one thing. [The Shoposphere] is the next generation of how people are reviewing products. It’s turning into a blog meets review platform. We think this is one of the products that will kick off a very rapid phase of innovation from big players in Q1.”

More Yahoo! Shopping Stories:
Comparison Shopping - Important Holiday Season Happenings - November 26, 2005
The Shoposphere - A Closer Look at the New Yahoo! Shopping - November 15, 2005
Integration of Shopping Coupons - October 14, 2005
Interview with Chris Saito (Yahoo! Shopping) on the launch of Yahoo! Shopping Web Services - August 4, 2005
Interview with Rob Solomon, GM & VP Yahoo! Shopping - July 18, 2005

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.

I wanted to learn more about Yahoo! Shopping APIs. Here’s a Q&A with Chris Saito, Sr. Director of Product, Yahoo! Shopping.

Why is this important?
The launch of Yahoo! Shopping Web Services is part of our strategy to provide open access to Yahoo!’s network and enable developers to create new innovative apps. With the Yahoo! Shopping Web Services developers will have access to millions of product offers from thousands of merchants in our shopping search database. The products included are very comprehensive and cover apparel, computers and electronics, home and garden, books, DVDs, jewelry, and so on. So there is a lot for developers to access. Also the web service APIs are simple to use and rely on basic web standards such as HTTP and XML. It should be quick and easy for developers to get started using the APIs to build new web applications.

Why has this taken so long to come about? Does this represent a change in direction for Yahoo! Shopping or is it just part of a larger Yahoo! initiative? Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, I go to a conference without great internet connectivity (eTail2005 in Philly) and all of a sudden there’s tons of news about the comparison engines. I have lots of catch up work to do, but here’s the gist…

-MSN Shopping announced this morning that it’s working with Shopping.com in addition to working with PriceGrabber. The key here is in addition to. I just talked with Chris Jolley and will post his comments very soon.

-Yahoo! Shopping announces APIs. This is really cool news and a big step forward for comparison engines. I will try to talk with someone at Yahoo! later today. Here’s a link to the Developer Network

Rob Solomon is General Manager and Vice President of Yahoo! Shopping. Prior to joining Yahoo! Rob worked at FireDrop, a Kleiner Perkins backed start-up, Cendant Corporation, Electronic Arts, and GolfWeb.

I sat down with Rob at Yahoo’s offices in Sunnyvale and then followed up with a phone call a couple weeks later. Here’s what he had to say.

Background…
“Consumer behavior is changing and people are looking for products on Yahoo!, Google, and MSN. Yahoo! Shopping is a starting point for e-commerce based on search. The trick with Yahoo! Shopping is to create a search experience that is better than general search. We created a vertical experience that’s more valuable. Consumers want to find the right product at the right price with all necessary product information and then make a more informed buying decision. Yahoo! Shopping is becoming a starting point and adding value to the shopping experience.”

Not all stores have an online presence. That’s why PriceGrabber StoreFronts becomes an attractive option…
“Individual sellers and individual listings are important, too. At the end of the day, we’ll integrate them into Yahoo! Shopping. We’ll enable more people to sell online and access an audience. The key, though, is search. The margins of the pure play comparison engines are not that great. Those companies are not as efficient as Yahoo, MSN, and Google. Search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing are fueling the growth of pure play shopping comparison engines. Unless consumers are very savvy, they don’t know about comparison engines.”

Explain how Yahoo! Shopping fits in with Yahoo Small Business, Yahoo Product Submit, Yahoo! Mindset, and Yahoo!
“Yahoo! Shopping is a distribution channel for anyone selling online. Yahoo Small Business takes a hosting centric view, enabling people to get online, and then gives shopping carts to people enabling them to sell. Yahoo Product Submit is a way for anyone to list on Yahoo! Shopping as we’ve decided to be an open platform [users don’t have to host their website through Yahoo Small Business].

“Yahoo! Shopping is a structured program in that we take feeds, but we crawl the web to Read the rest of this entry »