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.
Adblock Plus (ABP) is a free and open-source browser extension for content-filtering and ad blocking. It is developed by Eyeo GmbH, a German software company. The extension has been released for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser, and Android.
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. 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.
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.
Douglas Holding was a German retail group based in Düsseldorf which included subsidiaries perfumery chain Douglas GmbH, confectionery chain Hussel, bookstore chain Thalia Buchhandel and women's fashion store chain AppelrathCüpper. After the takeover by financial investor Advent International, Douglas Holding was delisted in 2013 and the conglomerate was gradually split into its individual companies.
Spread Group is the umbrella brand of five internationally active e-commerce platforms with headquarters in Leipzig, Germany and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, United States. It operates production sites in Legnica, Poland, Krupka, Czech Republic and Henderson, Nevada, United States. Founded in 2002 as a student start-up, the name "Spreadshirt" has become part of today's group of companies: Spreadshirt Create Your Own, Spreadshirt Marketplaces, Spreadshop, TeamShirts and SPOD.
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.
United Internet AG is a global Internet services company headquartered in Montabaur, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The company is structured in two business areas, Access and Applications, and has a total of 16 brands and numerous subsidiaries. The well-known brands under the umbrella of United Internet AG include 1&1, IONOS, Fasthosts, GMX, WEB.DE and 1&1 Versatel.
mySupermarket was an independent shopping and comparison shopping website for groceries in the United Kingdom. It retrieved price information from multiple online retailers, so that customers could compare their prices. On 27 February 2020 Gilad Simhony announced it would be closing on 1 March 2020. His statement read: "After 14 years of service to UK shoppers, the mySupermarket website and mobile application will be taken down from March 1st, 2020 as we shift our activity toward other business areas. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the tens of millions of you who have used our services over the years and who have contributed to its amazing success. It has been our pleasure and privilege to serve you and to share this journey with you."
Like.com was a price comparison service website that billed itself as a "visual search engine for products".
Sedo is a domain name and website marketplace and domain parking provider based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Cologne, Germany. The company is a subsidiary of United Internet.
1&1 AG is a German telecommunications service and landline and mobile telecommunications provider headquartered in Montabaur, Rhineland-Palatinate and listed on the TecDAX. Since 2017, the majority of the company has belonged to United Internet.
Twenga.com is an online open shopping search engine.
PricePanda is a price comparison shopping website and distributed content store, founded in 2012 by Christian Schiller and Louis Iskandar in Berlin. The managing director is Philip Wegener.
ePages is an e-commerce software that allows merchants to create and run online shops in the cloud. The number of shops based on ePages is currently 140,000 worldwide. ePages software is regularly updated due to its Software-as-a-Service model. An investor in the company is United Internet, with a 25% stake. ePages focuses upon distributing its products mainly through hosting providers, such as 1&1 Internet, Strato AG or Webfusion's brands Host Europe and 123-reg. Additional sales partners include logistics, telecoms, and yellow pages companies. The company collaborates with 80+ technology partners including online marketplaces, payment and logistics companies, and ERP vendors. ePages is headquartered in Hamburg, with additional offices in London, Barcelona, New York City and Jena.
Signa Holding GmbH is Austria's largest privately owned real estate company. Signa Holding GmbH announced insolvency proceedings at the end of November 2023. The company will apply for self-administration restructuring proceedings at the Commercial Court of Vienna.
Atolls is a privately held international commerce content online savings, cashback and affiliate marketing company, that combines multiple savings portals in over 20 countries. The company owns CupoNation, Pepper.com and Coupons.com, as well as several other discount code and deal sites across Europe, and operates coupon portals for publishing houses. GSG has won the German Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 award and was included in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 EMEA list in 2017. In 2016, the company generated $546 million in sales for retailers. The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany.
Trusted Shops is a company founded in Cologne, Germany in 1999, which offers online shops and their customers trust-building services by means of a trustmark, a money-back guarantee process and a system of customer reviews. Online retailers are also provided with assistance in meeting legal requirements. Around 25,000 online shops display the trustmark as of July 2019.
Geizhals, known in English as Skinflint Price Comparison, is a feature and price comparison website, focusing on, but not limited to, the German-speaking area. The product filters are managed by an editorial board. For notebooks it has 150 filters, and offers for each product type up to more than 100 different offers from online stores.
