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The convenience of online shopping has made it very popular and many people are now opting to shop from the comfort of their home rather than drive down to the superstore. The internet has made it possible for us to purchase items without even crossing borders and you only need to bookmark your favorite online stores to get the items of your choice delivered to you at your doorstep.

This online shopping experience has been boosted with the introduction of search engines that do a price comparison on different products and present the best deal to the customer based on his previous buying habits. All of us loathe going from shop to shop seeking the best deal on a specific item and here you have something presented to you on a platter. These engines have the capability to not only compare products within the same category, but can also do across categories. Moreover, they take into consideration other factors like the reputation of the online merchant and authentic product information gleaned from product reviews, which they present to the customer to enable him to make an informed decision.

It is for these reasons that online merchants can no longer afford to neglect the utility of a shopping search engine. They know that customers shopping online are savvy and it is in their interest to make available authentic and researched information to get the sale from such online customers quickly. The issues of security and customer lack of confidence in making online purchases due to the apprehension of credit card fraud or a particular online merchant not returning money for goods damaged in transit has also been addressed by some of these shopping search engines by enabling customers to post testimonials about their experiences and by having a comprehensive rating system in place for such online merchants.

The question now is what kind of a shopping search engine you should go for?

They are of broadly two types – one which are general and do a comparison with several categories and products and the second which is specific to verticals and concentrate on fewer products.
Let us look at some of the principal search engines specializing in this activity. These are repositories of information gained from comparing millions of items spread across multiple categories and you only need to browse to the right vertical to get the required information.

a) EBay – This engine can boast of providing linkages to many thousands of online stores of all types and get you information on price and features in very quick time to enable you to take a decision on what to purchase. Their other arm Shopping.com also gives shoppers information on various auction listings, thus providing more options for the shoppers.

b) NexTag – This has a convenient feature giving you the net price you need to pay after including the taxes and even shipping costs taking into account your Zip code. You thus know exactly how much a particular product is going to cost you.

c) Google Base – This allows you to place your goods on it and you do not need to have your own website. Through this, you can reach across to your customers and transact.

The above search engines have traditionally relied on direct advertising to draw customers to their sites. Of late however, they have been successful in linking them selves with specific sites stocking a particular product through an “API”, to present the shopper with information on the product he is seeking. The online shopper is blissfully unaware of all this happening in a fraction of a second in the background.

More importantly, meta-shopping sites that can draw information from many such comparison shopping sites is the latest development and all this is extremely good news for the online shopper.