Get your comparison-shopping strategy ready for Christmas

Comparison-shopping engines (CSEs) really come into their own during the Christmas shopping season, as consumers flock to them to simplify their gift buying. To make sure that you reap the maximum rewards from the comparison sites this season, the team at ChannelAdvisor have put together a list of tips. Some of their suggestions:

* Be prepared for the traditional comparison-shopping engine rate hike. According to the ChannelAdvisor white paper “2009 Comparison Shopping Holiday Checklist”, CSEs typically raise their rates by 20 percent in mid-November to take advantage of the increase in demand. Rates usually go back to normal on 1st January, but you should log in to your CSE accounts at the beginning of the year to make sure.

* Adjust any spending caps you may have in place. If you don’t raise them somewhat to compensate for increases in rates and traffic, you could miss out on additional sales.

* Reevaluate suppressed products. You may have suppressed from your CSE feeds products that generate web traffic but have low conversion rates. Now’s the time to reintroduce these items “for specific events such as sales/promotions, price reductions, and any seasonality considerations,” ChannelAdvisor suggests. “Remember, something about the offer was compelling to the shopper. This can be hidden revenue.” 

* If you plan to reinstate suppressed products or reintroduce holiday items, do so well in advance. By adding these items back to your data feeds at least several weeks prior to mid-November, you can improve those items’ popularity scores. Those scores are determined by historic traffic and/or click-through rates, and the higher the popularity score, the more prominently the CSE will promote it.

* If you offer free shipping, be sure to promote it. “Populate the shipping field in your data feeds with a zero (0) for all products that are eligible for free shipping. Leaving this field blank is sure to limit the number of consumers who will pay attention to your product listing. All CSEs have callouts for free shipping. In fact, Google Product Search allows consumers to list only those product offers with free shipping by simply checking a box.”

* Fill in all the fields in the merchant user interface.

* Ensure that the titles and descriptions of your products match the terminology used by consumers. “Leverage your paid-search campaigns as well as natural-search traffic to identify key terms that do not exist in your product data. Cast a wide net by integrating as many of these terms and phrases as possible into your feeds.”

* Know your true cost-per-click rate. If your CSEs charge extra for promo copy, logos, and the like, be sure you factor those costs in to your ROI equations.