Lots O' Bots for CyberShop

Online retailer CyberShop.com Inc. has forged agreements with several Web shopping engines or "bots" to list an assortment of its merchandise form its two Web sites, (www.cybershop.com) CyberShop.com and (www.electronics.net) electronics.Net. Some of these bots include (www.inktomi.com) Inktomi, (www.cnet.com) Cnet, (www.msn.com) MSN Buyer's Guide, (www.mysimon.com) My Simon, (www.pricescan.com) Pricescan, (www.bottomdollar.com) Bottom Dollar and (www.dealtime.com) DealTime.
     These deals are structured so that Jersey City, N.J.-based CyberShop will send sometimes-daily data feeds to each bot detailing products, with descriptions and prices. The bots then post these items on their Web sites, says CyberShop, allowing online shoppers to comparison shop by price, by brand or by type from a variety of often-competing products.
     According Jeff Tauber, CyberShop's chairman and CEO, these deals allow it to "republish" its product databases and lead to "significantly higher" conversion rates. Although in many cases these bots would gather or "spider" information from CyberShop sites on their own, the agreements to proactively send data feeds to the bots is more timely and reliable than waiting for the bot to extract the data, he says.
     CyberShop.com offers designer and brand-name apparel, home accessories, toys, gifts and watches, as well as electronics through electronics.Net, at "deep discount." In July 1999, CyberShop acquired (http://tools.cybershop.com) tools-for-living.com, a marketer of health and personal care products and home accessories.