- Shopzilla
Infobox_Company
company_name = Shopzilla Inc.
company_
company_type =Subsidiary
company_slogan = discovery made simple.
foundation = flagicon|USALos Angeles, California
(November, 1996)
location_city =Los Angeles, California
location_country = USA
industry = Internet Services : Comparison Shopping
key_people = Bill Glass,president
Brad Kates, CFO
Jody Mulkey, Senior VP & CIOFarhad Mohit, co-founder Henri Asseily, co-founder| num_employees = 400 (2007)
products = (See services listing.)
homepage = [http://www.shopzilla.com/ shopzilla.com]
[http://www.shopzilla.co.uk/ shopzilla.co.uk]Shopzilla is a
price comparison service . Founded in June 1996 byFarhad Mohit and Henri Asseily as Binary Compass Enterprises, the company changed its name to BizRate.com in January 1999. The company launched the website Shopzilla in November 2004, which then became the company name too.The company's mission is to enable shoppers to find, compare and buy anything, sold by virtually anyone, anywhere. In May 2006, Shopzilla attracted over 20 million unique visitors according to
ComScore . Shopzilla also operates the BizRate.com consumer feedback network that collects millions of consumer reviews of stores and products each year.In June 2005, Shopzilla was acquired by The
E. W. Scripps Company for $525 million [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/07/business/shopzilla.php International Herald Tribune article] about Scripps buying Shopzilla] and is now part of its interactive media division. Shopzilla operates websites serving consumers and retailers in the U.S., UK, French and German markets.Shopzilla is headquartered in
West Los Angeles , CA.Products and services
Comparison Shopping, Merchant Ratings and Reviews.
Revenue Streams
As for most comparison shopping services, the main revenue stream comes from selling leads to merchants, using the common model called Pay Per Click (PPC) which is also known as Cost Per Click (CPC).
Minimum CPC rates are set by Shopzilla primarily depending on the product categories, and secondarily based on time of the year. Over the past few years Shopzilla (as well as most of its competitors) has hiked up minimum CPC rates during the holidays shopping season [ [http://www.comparisonengines.com/2007/11/06/seasonal-ppc-increases-on-the-shopping-engines/ Seasonal PPC increases] comparisonengines.com, Accessed April 9 2008] .
On the Shopzilla merchant extranet, merchants can choose to raise (or lower down to the minimum) their CPC rates across the board, by category or by individual product. Shopzilla uses the CPC rate as one of many parameters to determine a merchant's ranking on a product result listing. Some of the other parameters include presence of a product picture, availability of the product and the merchant's BizRate statisfaction ratings. As with Google and other search engines, Shopzilla regularly updates its sorting algorithm called ShopRank.As such, a merchant can theoretically be more competitive in the Shopzilla rankings by doing any combination of increasing product information and stock, improving its satisfaction ratings or simply paying more per click.
References
External links
* [http://www.shopzilla.com/ Shopzilla]
** [http://www.bizrate.com/ BizRate shopping search]
* [http://berytech.org/content/view/281/269/ Berytech honors Henri Asseily, co-founder of Shopzilla.]
* [http://www.iranian.com/Diaspora/2003/September/Mohitt/index.html Interview to Farhad Mohit]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
