The internet is supposed to be a place of intense price competition, but you can’t always find the best deals on any one site. To solve the problem, online price comparison search engines were born. We’ve covered a few newer ones before, such as TheFind and Mpire, although these sites also include a variety of other features.
Bountii is a new price search engine started by two founders from the latest Y Combinator class. They focus on the incredibly popular and competitive category of electronics, currently crawling over 30 merchants. Bountii says they differentiate themselves from other price search engines by digging deeper into the prices. Their data includes shipping and handling, and finds especially low prices normally hidden from basic searches, like the ones Costco only shows at check out. The system can add shipping and handling by zip code.
But the real test is how well it finds low prices. While it’s by no means comprehensive, I ran a simple test across some pricing search engines for the term “lg 42″ plasma hdtv”. While the search experience varied greatly, the numerical results I came up with were as follows: TheFind ($962.65), MySimon ($1099.99), Mpire ($968.09 inc. S&H), Bountii ($1057.86), Google (listed $968.09 but really $1,061.95). Price Grabber was the most frustrating. The initial results listed $799 as the bottom price. However, you find out that it’s for a refurbished unit. The actual price was $983.53, which you find is $1043.43 with shipping and handling.
While not the lowest in this case, Bountii was competitive. I can imagine the results would be different on another product. The sites that did the best found this deal at Ritz Camera, which has free shipping and handling.
They crawl over 30 merchants? And this is somehow newsworthy? Please. I worked at an early price comparison site, and we were crawling hundreds of electronics sites in 1999.
The shipping and handling charges are easy to calculate, especially when there are only 30 sites.
I don’t mean to pee in anyone’s yogurt– this might be a good little business that earns these guys a side income from affiliate fees.
One website that was not tested, which happens to be my favorite (www.shopping.com) returned about the same results. I don’t like Bountii’s home page. You have to know exactly what you’re looking for so you can search for it. With other sites, like Shopping.com you have the option of browsing from the home screen. Just my thoughts.
ummm, i dont think shipping is included in all those comparisons… Ritz has free shipping only on Cameras…
Nice logo.
There are so many price comparison sites to choose from and many list the same stores. What I don’t understand is do merchants ever do searches on their products like a consumer would do? If so, why would they bother to list a product for $75-$150 more than what can be found using comparison sites (a digital camera for instance)? I can’t image that the higher priced vendors sell very man items.
I don’t get it. Is TC on YCombinator’s payroll? This is simply not newsworthy.
So, why is this news worth? Seriously!!! It doesn’t find the best prices and it doesn’t add anything new. Is this a paid review?
Yes, flush with thousands of dollars, I’m sure they’ll bribe everyone in Silicon Valley.
I like the minimalistic UI, it doesn’t get in your way. All the other price comparison sites look to spammy..
However, rather than solely relying on search, it’d probably help to put up a more extensive static item listing just for people who like to browse.
There is another company, involved for years in the “casual games” business, named Boonty. See http://www.boonty.com for the service and http://www.boonty.net for the corporate website
Bountii and Boonty are really close brands, I think this could drive to a legal dispute, even if they are not on the same business…
Here’s a quick list of comparison shopping sites. There are a few big names on this last, and while the smaller competitors claim to have their own unique spins, it’s all essentially the same thing.
beyond.com
bountii.com (as if!)
froogle.com
kellkoo.com
mysimon.com
nextag.com
pricegrabber.com
pricerunner.com
riya.com
shopper.com
shopping.com
shopping.yahoo.com
shopzilla.com
smarter.com
thefind.com
Feel free to add to this list, if you can think of others.
I really like this; particularly it’s speed/responsiveness and the simplicity of the interface.
I may be biased, but I like this site enough to come back and use it.
So what’s new?
SmartShopper gives you comparison of prices with shiping and handling based on Zip Code.
Yaaawwwwn
Every single shopping comparison engine puts their price, including shipping and handling. In fact its one of the requirements. Also they have thousands of merchants as opposed to 30.
Someone friends with the owners of the new CSE?
Clean interface: good.
Having to enter Zip code a second time, for a similar object: bad.
Hi Everyone-
Just wanted to point out an error in Nick’s price comparison test on
the “LG 42″ Plasma HDTV”. Both Nick and the 2 shopping engines (Mpire
and TheFind.com) that reported the Ritz Camera price to be the lowest
available neglected to include a $160 delivery charge. Bountii
correctly lists the bottom line price (i.e. including tax and
shipping) for this product at RitzCamera.
-John
Hey .. this cannot find me an iphone cheaper than 399 … too bad for bountii
Hi all,
I included Bountii in an example of usability design, if you are interested on the topic you can read the article here:
http://www.desi...-site-is-about/
Alex
I’ve seen dozens of sites every year come and go and this one just doesn’t offer anything exciting. Going into the Costco site to grab Shipping/handling behind a closed wall is the only thing that sounds slightly interesting but unfortunately they leave the basics behind like showing more than one price/merchant for a major product like the iPOD!!!!
http://bountii....eal-795484.html
I clicked on the link you provided and found that PriceGrabber did in fact have the best NEW price (S&H included).
http://electron...4/search=42PM1M
I don’t think you can beat PG at this game.
The proof will be if they can deliver results. Our organization will certainly give them a try. Let’s see how much printer ink and toner they can sell for us.
I’d be very interested in everyone interested in shopping comparison sites to look at a new patented statistics technique from a prestigious biomedical institution that could allow a user to narrow search results to results more appropriate to the preferences he or she has. Price matters, but only if you find the product you want to buy first.
http://www.mind...com/muscore.htm
We’ve got a simple 3-pager to read that describes the patent. Please have a look.
Thanks.