PriceRunner

The website PriceRunner is a price comparison service launched in Sweden in 1999, and since bought by ValueClick. It allows users to compare prices on a range of products. The commercial headquarters are in London, England, and it also has offices in Stockholm, Munich, Paris and California.

Infobox Software | name = PriceRunner



caption = PriceRunner homepage screenshot
developer = Kristofer Arwin, Martin Alexanderson and Magnus Wiberg
latest_release_version = 1.29.4
latest_release_date = 13/07/2006
latest_preview_version =
latest_preview_date =
operating_system = Any (web based application)
genre = Price comparison service
license =
website = http://www.pricerunner.com

History

PriceRunner was launched in 1999 as a price comparison service based in Sweden and originally financed by a venture capitalist group called Cell Ventures [http://www.pricerunner.com/about.html 'About Us' page on PriceRunner.com] , who were later acquired by NewMedia Spark. It launched the service in the UK and Denmark in 2000. Initially, they had planned to become a pan-European service [http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/10528/pricerunner-offers-europe--wide-price-comparison.html Pricerunner offers Europe-wide price comparison] , but some of these services were closed down in 2002 after poor financial performance.

In August 2004, it was acquired by ValueClick, an online media company, for £16 million ($29 million). [http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/157038/valueclick-acquires-pricerunner.html e-consultancy article: ValueClick acquires Pricerunner]

Further expansion saw PriceRunner reopen the French office in August 2004, go into Germany in October of the same year [http://www.netimperative.com/2004/10/12/Pricerunner_Germany Pricerunner launches in Germany] , and the US in October 2005 [http://www.comparisonengines.com/2005/07/26/pricerunner-announces-launch-in-the-us/ PriceRunner Announces Launch in the US] .

In 2006, it announced that it would launch a partnership service with 118118, a UK phone based service, to provide prices to people by SMS [https://www.netimperative.com/2006/07/03/PriceRunner PriceRunner teams with 118 118] . This followed an earlier failure to enter the mobile market in 2002 by providing price tracking through the site. In October, MSN announced that their [http://shopping.msn.co.uk/ Shopping sites] in France and the UK would be powered by PriceRunner and Shopping.com [http://www.webpronews.com/financial/news/wpn-64-20061002EuropePriceRunnerMakesDealWithMSN.html Europe: PriceRunner Makes Deal With MSN] . They had previously been powered by Kelkoo.

In 2007-8 PriceRunner also set up partnerships with Ask, the Energy Saving Trust, MSN and Which? providing them with shopping engines for their websites.

Technology

PriceRunner uses a combination of screen scraping retailers' websites and files supplied by the retailers themselves. These prices are matched against a backend database. This is done both by using a fuzzy logic automatching system and manually by admin staff.

Business model

PriceRunner is similar to other price comparison services in that it is financed by advertisers, who pay on a pay per click model. It also uses web banners provided by sister company, advertising network vcmedia.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.pricerunner.com/ PriceRunner US site]
* [http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/ PriceRunner UK site]