New Comparison Shopping Search Engine Snap Shopping

Perfect Market Technologies, Inc., that company that owns and operates Snap.com, has unveiled its new shopping channel -- Snap Shopping (shopping.snap.com). Snap Shopping is a comparison search engine that empowers users to compare features and prices of millions of products--and locate online coupons associated with those products. Snap.com collaborated with MeziMedia, owners of Smarter.com and CouponMountain.com to create http://www.shopping.snap.com.

"Through our relationship with MeziMedia, Snap Shopping will offer users a wide selection of merchants to choose from with valuable discounts to find what they are looking for at the best price" said Tom McGovern, CEO of Snap.com. "With Smarter.com's shopping platform and the benefits of CouponMountain.com, this partnership provides a great enhancement to our search portfolio and a valuable resource for consumers."

What’s interesting to note is that Snap.com's shopping channel leverages the refine-as-you-type (RAFT) functionality that Snap.com has pioneered in their web and news search channels. RAFT allows you to quickly sort and filter listings or products, which allows you to get more relevant results. "Both Snap.com and Smarter.com share the common goal to improve the search experience," said Harry Tsao, co-founder of Smarter.com. "We are very pleased that Snap.com chose our flexible infrastructure designed for partners who wish to offer a powerful comparison shopping search for their site. We are confident that our relationship with Snap.com will grow and serve as a testament to the value we provide in this category." Snap Shopping features 600 vendors in categories like flowers, movies, music, clothing & accessories and more. This new site positions Snap.com as the largest database of discounts available to consumers.

As an online merchant, you have the opportunity to list your products in the new Snap Shopping search engine. Snap Shopping is powered by Smarter, and you can sign up as a merchant by going to the Smarter.com site at http://www.smarter.com/advertise/ .

A quick check of the current bid prices reveal the following bid prices:

Top Level Category Pricing (Cost-per-Click Minimum)

Apparel ( $0.15 - $0.30 )
Books ( $0.15 )
Computers ( $0.15 - $0.60 )
Electronics ( $0.15 - $0.60 )
Flowers ( $0.35 )
Home & Garden ( $0.15 - $0.50 )
Movies ( $0.15 )
Music ( $0.15 )
Musical Instruments ( $0.40 )
Photography ( $0.15 - $0.60 )
Software ( $0.40 )
Video Games ( $0.30)

According to the Smarter.com website, “Smarter.com delivers consumers that have researched their purchase, and are ready to buy online. Anecdotal evidence from our merchants indicates that conversion rates from Smarter.com are 2x to 7x times higher than paid search engines...Listing on Smarter.com starts at just $0.15 a click for select categories, and top bids are substantially less than other leading comparison shopping engines or paid search engines.”

Advertising on this new Shopping.Snap.com website might be exactly what an online retailer needs—the ability to pay a reasonable price for clicks by what appears to be extremely targeted visitors.

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