Loading Poll...How price comparison sites work.
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How price comaprison sites work.
Published by incrediblesulk
22nd January 2009  How price comparison sites work.How price comparison sites work.
I know a little about this so i thought I'd share it. Price comparison sites work by 'affiliating' with the businesses that actually sell the product. An affiliation is basically a partnership with a company whereby any purchase gives the seller a commission, usually a set price, sometimes a percentage. Let's say John goes to Steve's website... 1. Steve's website compares car insurance. 2. When Steve set up his website he visited 'Tradedoubler.com' and affifliated with the big insurers. 3. John visits Steve's website and buys some car insurance. 4. Steve gets paid by that insurer. Simple! Some people might argue that an affiliate will push the product (in this example car insurance) that gives the most commission but in reality this would be business suicide because if the website got 'caught out' then the business would lose the trust that these type of websites rely on. In reality it doesn't really matter what car insurance John chooses, Steve still gets paid.
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written by Home and Garden, September 17, 2009
As i am operating a price comparison site i would like to add a couple of things on this conversation. All price comparison operators either focusing on services like car insurance or products i.e. furniture, get their information from the companies which originally provide them. How effective the comparison is, depends on the technology developed from each price comparison site. Yes, we do make our money from a commission paid to us from the companies we advertise. This however doesn't change the price for the end user. Actually is cheaper for a company to promote their products through this channel rather than traditional marketing methods, as they pay only when a transactions is completed.
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written by broxie, November 13, 2009
And of course if you use the price comparison sites to find which insurer (etc) is offering the best price for your circumstance, then log out and go via a cashback site (like Quidco etc) to pick up the commission for yourself. For car & house insurance it's often in the region of £50-100 a time. No wonder there are so many meerkat ads on TV!
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OK, these sites hold a database which is constantly updated. Without boring you too much, a database is a collection of information which can be searched.
Let's say you're looking for cheap electricity in Devon; the database will search it's records for the lowest price for electricity and then search for electricity in Devon, minus all cheap electricity results so that it only displays results for Devon and you've got your answer(s).
Be Aware:
Gas, electricity etc prices go up and down all the time, what might be the best deal today may well not be the best deal in a month's time.
I saw on 'LK Today' that we should wait a month (time of writing 10th Feb 09).