Shopping comparison site PriceGrabber.com today unveiled preview versions of sites in the U.K. and Canada. The company says it was responding to customer demand for sites similar to what PriceGrabber provides in the U.S.
To start, the U.K. site, at uk.pricegrabber.com, will offer computer-related items, software, electronics and photography products while the Canadian site at ca.pricegrabber.com will mirror all the product categories on the U.S. site.
“We have always recognized that comparison shopping is a universal concept that appeals to smart shoppers everywhere, which is the reason we built our technology from the start with a view toward internationalization,” said Kamran Pourzanjani, president of PriceGrabber.com.
The Canadian site lists Canadian stores in addition to companies that ship to Canada, with the locations of sellers identified. The UK site includes a BottomLinePrice feature that calculates and separately displays VAT and shipping charges in addition to product prices, providing UK users the ability to determine their final cost without the need to check each merchant site.
The U.K. site will eventually include video games and home and garden goods, then apparel and jewelry, with expansion starting in three to four months, CEO Tamim Mourad tells InternetRetailer.com.
Mourad says the company will next look at Germany and France for expansion and expects to be in one of those markets by early next year. He says PriceGrabber already has experience operating sites in different languages as it maintains sites in Spanish and Portguese for the U.S. market.
PriceGrabber was founded in 1999 and achieved profitability in early 2001.
Shopping.com, another U.S.-based shopping comparison site, operates DealTime.co.uk and is expected to re-brand the site as Shopping.co.uk this year. Shopping.com is the new name of the merged DealTime.com and ePinions.com. Comparison site BizRate.com has U.K. and Canadian sites, but they do not contain local merchants. Rather, they offer price comparisons from U.S. merchants who ship to the U.K. and Canada and currency conversions. BizRate expects to offer local merchants in the near future, the company says.
Comments
Sign In to Make a Comment
Comments are moderated by Internet Retailer and can be removed.