Advice for Building a Price Comparison Website

by Russell Mark

Posted: 10 years ago 16 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi all. I've decided to build a price comparison website in a niche I'm personally familiar with. After speaking to a few people, there's clearly a demand for it.

Some questions the pros might be able to help me with:

Should I build the site myself (I'm a web developer) or is there any existing price comparison software I can buy?
How do I retain users without a mailing list? How do I get them to bookmark the site?
How do I make the offer clear to users? The offer being find the lowest cost provider for a particular product.

Does anyone have any experience and advice?

Thanks a lot!

#advice #building #comparison #price #website

joaquin112 10 years ago

There's a lot you're not mentioning. What kind of products? What kind of experience do you have? What features do you want your website to have?

If you're really a web developer you shouldn't even need to ask in the first place.
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- NatesMarketing 10 years ago
  
  I don't think selling the lowest cost product should be your goal.
  
  You should sell the medium to highest cost item - tell people why it's better.
  
  For example...web hosting...I can spend $1.99/mo and have 30% uptime, or $12.99/mo with 99.9% uptime.....I'd be willing to spend the extra for that.
  
  Lowest price isn't what wins...it's whatever has the highest perceived value for the lowest price.
  
  You just need to make the perceived value high.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  Steve B 10 years ago
  
  Russell,
  
  I'm aware of a web site theme built on the WordPress platform that is designed for a comparison shopping site. You might want to have a look -
  
  Go Here
  
  Even if you don't buy the product, it might give you some ideas how others have designed their comparison sites. There is a live demo so you can click around the template.
  
  I have used this company's products before and they are excellent in my opinion, as is their customer service.
  
  Good luck to you.
  
  Steve
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  
  Steve Browne, online business strategies, tips, guidance, and resources
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owais211

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by Russell Mark

Should I build the site myself (I'm a web developer) or is there any existing price comparison software I can buy?

It will give you more commitment if you will setup your own made website.

That's a good idea making a comparison site, But that should not limit your site in stating lowest prices out there, wise buyer look more on quality. Also do some detailed reviews of your product comparisons.

Thanks
1 reply

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Russell Mark

10 years ago

Originally Posted by NatesMarketing

I don't think selling the lowest cost product should be your goal.

You should sell the medium to highest cost item - tell people why it's better.

For example...web hosting...I can spend $1.99/mo and have 30% uptime, or $12.99/mo with 99.9% uptime.....I'd be willing to spend the extra for that.

Lowest price isn't what wins...it's whatever has the highest perceived value for the lowest price.

You just need to make the perceived value high.

That's true Nate, typically users will be comparing the exact same product or very similar product from multiple suppliers. But the products being compared a bulk goods, this is my trump card since I can 'sort by nearest location' by default for faster/cheaper shipping or local pickup which is common in this industry.

Originally Posted by Steve B

Russell,

I'm aware of a web site theme built on the WordPress platform that is designed for a comparison shopping site. You might want to have a look -

Go Here

Even if you don't buy the product, it might give you some ideas how others have designed their comparison sites. There is a live demo so you can click around the template.

I have used this company's products before and they are excellent in my opinion, as is their customer service.

Good luck to you.

Steve

Thankyou very much Steve! This is just what I was looking for last night. I'm going to fork this theme for my website, should save me heaps of development time. Thanks a bunch!

Originally Posted by owais211

Absolutely Owais! The industry and domain I have, lend themselves well to expanding into both editor reviews and customer reviews. Doing reviews for high ticket items would be my next step if I can get traffic.

Thanks
1 reply

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IMstarter 10 years ago

A couple of years ago I used Price Comparison and Affiliate Data Feed Script Price Tapestry (not an affiliate link) to build a price comparison site. They have a good returns policy too if you are not happy with the product and their customer support was very good too.
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- prabhakars 10 years ago
  
  I am keen in knowing how to gather the data on daily basis.
  Is it by web crawling or web scraping or joining affiliate programs or some agency provide the data?
  
  Well, I am looking in building some thing like IXIGO.com
  
  Thanks
  
  Thanks
  
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seobro 10 years ago

Check out snap sort camera. They are great for price comparison. Also, they have all the features in a table for easy access. Yeah, this web site is plus max.

Maybe you can create a similar site for your own genre. Mostly, it is easy to use. Plan on creating a site that is similar, but not the same. This web site could show side by side all the item features as well as price. Most people can use this type of program. It quickly compare two items and give you score. That way you get the best one.
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Vector Graphics 10 years ago

I've seen a couple of price comparison Wordpress themes that you could buy. I'm sure they were around the $50 - $100 mark.

I think you should be building a mailing list and sending deals or offers in your niche to your subscribers. You could simply tell people to sign up to get the best deals on products in your niche.

It doesn't matter what your website is used for you should always be building a mailing list!
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jaiganeshv 10 years ago

If the core service of the site is to provide price comparison only then you should custom code, may be a plugin with wordpress CMS. Or if its an affiliate site that uses price comparison table to sell affiliate products, you can search for plugins sold here in the forum that offer that functionality.

FYI - Google products has a nice price comparison feature that gives almost complete picture of the product + shipping and taxes before even you click and land on the site.
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Shib 10 years ago

I am planning to make a comparison website and make money by becoming an affiliate with the companies whose products I will compare. Is there any conditions I have to fulfil for companies to accept me as an affiliate
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Stuart Walker 10 years ago

There's some existing comparison themes you might want to look into

Price Compare - A Premium eCommerce WordPress Theme | Free Download

ComparisonPress - A Premium eCommerce WordPress Theme | Free Download

Compare - A Premium eCommerce WordPress Theme | Free Download

Have never used any of them personally but were easy enough to find on Google and I'm sure there's 100s more.
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andrealhendrick 10 years ago

Hi all. I've decided to build a price comparison website in a niche I'm personally familiar with. After speaking to a few people, there's clearly a demand for it.

Some questions the pros might be able to help me with:

Should I build the site myself (I'm a web developer) or is there any existing price comparison software I can buy?
It all depends, if money is tight for you then I would suggest that you develop it yourself. There may be some open source script our there that you could purchase and build on top of to save you both time and money from hiring another person or company to develop it.

How do I retain users without a mailing list? How do I get them to bookmark the site?
I would seriously consider setting up a mailing list. I believe there are newsletter mailing services that will allow you to have up to 500 subscribers for free.

How do I make the offer clear to users? The offer being find the lowest cost provider for a particular product.
Banners, front page text, have an faq section.

Thanks a lot!
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bannerwhiz 8 years ago

One thing is for sure , build it yourself
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iVlog 8 years ago

If you can make a good one, go for it. There is competition, but it always comes down to the best product.
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- PeterdB 8 years ago
  
  I don't know wether your question still applies but maybe it's helpfull to others. You could take a look at www.compareware.com. I use it for my own comparison site and am really happy with the solution. I had built my own site at first in ASP.net using .Net Nuke as CMS. It worked but did not have all the functionality of the platform. I switched and am amble to focus on marketing in stead of technology.
  
  It's a Dutch company but I know they also support multiple languages...
  
  Just my two cents.
  
  Thanks
  
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Advice for Building a Price Comparison Website

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