Ciao was a European-based online-shopping portal with websites in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden. In February 2008, the company launched an American version of the site, Ciao.com.[1] The site provided a forum where registered users could write reviews and give their opinions on a wide variety of products to help others make decisions. These reviews were available to the general public to help consumers, but also rated by other Ciao users on their usefulness on a scale ranging from exceptional to off-topic. Up to December 2017, when a review was read by a member, the author had money added to their account. Members could also receive money through online surveys and referring friends. On 27 November 2017, Ciao announced that from 1 December all payments would be stopped. In February 2018, Ciao was closed down. Ciao was free to sign up for.[citation needed]
As well as offering reviews, the site also provided price comparison (working with merchants and agencies who provide data feeds) and allowed the user to click through and purchase products.[citation needed]
Ciao claims that it reached an audience of 28.4 million monthly unique visitors (ComScore, January 2013) in Europe.
Microsoft Purchases Ciao
Microsoft made an offer of $486 million in late August 2008 to purchase Greenfield Online, the owner of Ciao GmbH and Ciao, Inc.[2] Representatives from Microsoft said the purchase was primarily made to boost the company's Internet search and e-commerce business in Europe.[3]
LeGuide Group Acquires Ciao
Since the acquisition in March 2012, Ciao strengthens the portfolio of LeGuide Group (listed on Alternext board of NYSE Euronext Paris – ISIN code: FR0010146092), founded in 1998 and operating in 14 European countries through a multi-site strategy of online shopping guides, comparison websites, shopping search engines and platforms for consumer ratings. LeGuide Group surrounds a brand portfolio, including LeGuide.com, choozen, dooyoo.com, pikengo, shopwahl.de and Ciao. CEO of Shopping Guide GmbH and LeGuide Group is Olivier Sichel since July 2012.[4][5]
E-commerce is the activity of electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. E-commerce is the largest sector of the electronics industry and is in turn driven by the technological advances of the semiconductor industry.
Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A typology of shopper types has been developed by scholars which identifies one group of shoppers as recreational shoppers, that is, those who enjoy shopping and view it as a leisure activity.
Google Shopping, formerly Google Product Search, Google Products and Froogle, is a Google service created by Craig Nevill-Manning which allows users to search for products on online shopping websites and compare prices between different vendors. Google announced at its Marketing Live event in May 2019 that the new Google Shopping will integrate the existing Google Express marketplace into a revamped shopping experience. In the US, Google Shopping is accessible from the web and mobile apps, available on Android and iOS. Google Shopping is also available in France, accessible from the web only. Like its predecessor, Google Shopping is free and requires a personal Google account in order to purchase from the platform. A colored price tag icon replaces the parachute icon from Google Express.
Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine, which displays the same product's availability and pricing at different e-retailers. As of 2020, customers can shop online using a range of different computers and devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers and smartphones.
AgfaPhoto GmbH is a European photographic company, formed in 2004, when Agfa-Gevaert sold their Consumer Imaging division. Agfa had for many years been well known as a producer of consumer-oriented photographic products including films, photographic papers and cameras. However, within a year of the sell-off, AgfaPhoto had filed for bankruptcy.
Kelkoo is a European price comparison service founded in France in 1999.
Shopping cart software is a piece of e-commerce software on a web server that allows visitors to have an Internet site to select items for eventual purchase.
Social shopping is a method of e-commerce where shoppers' friends become involved in the shopping experience. Social shopping attempts to use technology to mimic the social interactions found in physical malls and stores. With the rise of mobile devices, social shopping is now extending beyond the online world and into the offline world of shopping.
Product finders are information systems that help consumers to identify products within a large palette of similar alternative products. Product finders differ in complexity, the more complex among them being a special case of decision support systems. Conventional decision support systems, however, aim at specialized user groups, e.g. marketing managers, whereas product finders focus on consumers.
Group buying, also known as collective buying, offers products and services at significantly reduced prices on the condition that a minimum number of buyers would make the purchase. Origins of group buying can be traced to China, where it is known as Tuán Gòu, or team buying.
A comparison shopping website, sometimes called a price comparison website, price analysis tool, comparison shopping agent, shopbot, aggregator or comparison shopping engine, is a vertical search engine that shoppers use to filter and compare products based on price, features, reviews and other criteria. Most comparison shopping sites aggregate product listings from many different retailers but do not directly sell products themselves, instead earning money from affiliate marketing agreements. In the United Kingdom, these services made between £780m and £950m in revenue in 2005. Hence, E-commerce accounted for an 18.2 percent share of total business turnover in the United Kingdom in 2012. Online sales already account for 13% of the total UK economy, and its expected to increase to 15% by 2017. There is a huge contribution of comparison shopping websites in the expansion of the current E-commerce industry.
Bizrate Insights Inc., trading as Bizrate Insights, is a market research company that provides consumer ratings information to their customers. A Dotdash Meredith company, Bizrate Insights is based in Los Angeles, California.
Bing Shopping is a products search and discovery service that helps save time by bringing products from multiple sellers together on a single website. It uses Bing to show product results–including photos and product details. Products can be filtered and prices compared. Purchases are completed on the seller's website.
Style.com was a luxury e-commerce website, launched by international media company Condé Nast in September 2016. In June 2017 Style.com was closed and absorbed by online retailer Farfetch.com
Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves social media and online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist online buying and selling of products and services.
Navigon GmbH was a Würzburg, Germany-based manufacturer of GPS devices and GPS navigation software. The company was privately owned, until in June 2011, it was announced that Navigon was to be acquired by Garmin and become a subsidiary of the company. With effect from October 31, 2011, Navigon has changed its legal entity from corporation (Aktiengesellschaft) to GmbH.
Nextag was an independent price comparison service website for products, travel, and education. It started as a website where buyers and sellers could negotiate prices for computers and electronics products. From 2000, the business model focused on comparison shopping. NexTag also owned Hamburg, Germany-based Guenstiger.de. It provided functionality for tracking the historical prices of a product across various sellers.
Customer to customer markets provide a way to allow customers to interact with each other. Traditional markets require business to customer relationships, in which a customer goes to the business in order to purchase a product or service. In customer to customer markets, the business facilitates an environment where customers can sell goods or services to each other. Other types of markets include business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C).
Purch Group, Inc. was a New York City-based digital media company. Originally established in 2003 as TechMedia Network, Inc., it was positioned as a "portfolio of brands and products focused on purchasing decisions"—consisting primarily of websites focusing on reviews of consumer electronics, positioned to marketers as outlets to "directly engage with buyers in the right place, at the right time".
Capital One Shopping is a browser plugin, website and mobile app that offers e-commerce comparison shopping and cash back at online retailers that participate in its programs. It is operated by Wikibuy, LLC of Plano, Texas, and is primarily aimed at consumers in the United States.
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