| © Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved | | | | features. |
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| Imagine you find yourself in the market to buy a new | | | | ranks as one of the oldest personal shoppingassistants |
| digitalcamera and, before you part with your money, | | | | on the Internet. |
| you want tocomparison shop for the best price online. | | | | Highlights of the service include an extensive |
| If you do a search for "digital camera" on Google.com, | | | | homepagedirectory to help you choose the correct |
| the | | | | product category tosearch and a database of millions |
| Web's top search engine, you'll get back over 7 million | | | | of products. |
| pageresults. | | | | On the negative, does manipulate their merchantlistings |
| Refine your search to a specific model, such as the | | | | pages based on how much money the advertiser |
| HP | | | | paysto show up in the results. |
| Photosmart 935, and you get back 137,000 page | | | | ~ ~ |
| results. Nowdo a search on BestBuy.com, | | | | does not accept money from advertisers tomanipulate |
| CircuitCity.com, and Amazon.comand you'll only find it | | | | their search results, though they will showtargeted |
| listed one time, and on that site itcosts $60 more than I | | | | advertising on the search results pages. |
| paid for it at Target. | | | | A very nice feature on this site involves the ability |
| Even though the web makes it easy to search out the | | | | toenter features you want in a particular item (such as |
| productswe want to buy, sometimes that mountain of | | | | acomputer) and then search all makes, models, |
| information makesit almost impossible to find the best | | | | andmanufacturers matching those features. |
| deal. | | | | You'll find this especially valuable when comparing |
| To solve this problem there are "personal online | | | | thingslike computers, which often carry many different |
| shoppers"which help you seek, find, and comparison | | | | variablesand configurations. |
| shop multipleoffers for just about any product you | | | | ~ ~ |
| want to buy, online oroffline. | | | | Operated by Internet giant, Google.com, allowsyou to |
| An online personal shopper-type service enables you | | | | search for specific items you want to buy and |
| to logon to a single site, enter the product details you | | | | thensort them by price. |
| want tosearch, and then have the website give you | | | | You can also specify a price range you're willing to |
| back a list ofprices and places where you can | | | | pay forthe item and Froogle will only search for and |
| purchase the item. | | | | display thoseitems that fall within the range. |
| The personal shopping assistant sites that rate the | | | | Froogle also clearly draws a line (literally) |
| bestdon't accept commissions for the sale of items | | | | betweenunbiased search results on the left side of the |
| through theirservices because getting paid based on | | | | page andadvertisers on the right. |
| what the customerbuys would eliminate unbiased | | | | In the testing for this article, Froogle |
| product comparisons. | | | | consistentlyreturned the highest quantity and most |
| The best services make their money by selling | | | | relevant searchresults for specific product names |
| targetedadvertising to merchants and only displaying | | | | entered. |
| products intheir search results based on price and | | | | |