Comparison shopping site Jellyfish.com has been acquired by Microsoft Corp., Jellyfish CEO Brian Wiegand confirmed today. Terms were not disclosed. The Wisconsin-based company will stay in Wisconsin while operating as part of Microsoft, Wiegand says.
“The acquisition by Microsoft allows us to greatly expand the vision of Jellyfish,” Wiegand says.
A blog post by Microsoft’s Live Search unit announcing the acquisition said Jellyfish is doing “some really innovative work in comparative shopping engines.” The post noted the potential for development of future applications on the Jellyfish platform as part of Microsoft’s ongoing investment in shopping and commerce as a key vertical for its Live Search engine, the Microsoft search product that competes with Google and Yahoo.
Jellyfish launched last year with a new twist on comparison shopping that lets merchants listing products pay Jellyfish per sale, not per click-through. In addition, the shopping site attracts consumers by sharing a percentage of the fee it receives from its merchants with shoppers in the form of cash.
The purchaser pays what’s listed on the engine as the total store price, but when a purchase is completed, Jellyfish shares at least half of the commission it receives from the merchant with the shopper. The amount the shopper will receive is shown prior to purchase, and when the purchase is completed, that amount goes from Jellyfish into an account the shopper has set up with Jellyfish. The share-back is in cash, which the shoppers can redeem via PayPal or other means as the accumulated funds in the account reach defined levels.
Merchants bid for position on Jellyfish’s engine, and they achieve high rankings based on how much cash back they are willing to provide. That makes it a competitive bidding environment where merchants bid for position with ad dollars to lower end prices, according to the company.
Jellyfish this year introduced a social shopping feature called Smack Shopping auctions. In the auctions, the price of the auctioned product drops continually, and shoppers buy when they like the price. The trick is that Smack Shopper does not disclose how many of each item will be put up for sale, so a shopper who waits too long can be left empty-handed. The feature also allows shoppers to chat with each other about the product and the auction as it is happening.
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