Greenzer Folding Up Feed Processing, Using Shopping.com

   Whether or not some argue this is simply a streamlining step for Greenzer.com, the shopping engine consolidation in 2010 effectively continues as Greenzer will no longer accept direct feeds and clients effective at the end of February. In this case, Shopping.com is the beneficiary, as they essentially have another high value affiliate site to add to their portfolio.

Shopping has been sending feeds to Greenzer for some time, however this effectively moves Greenzer clients to Shopping if they were not there already, and also creates some exclusivity for Shopping in pulling traffic to their network.

In terms of the general landscape of shopping engines, a couple of conclusions can be drawn from this, both of which are not new. First, making a shopping engine work is a hard business (both financially and technically). Second,  consolidation is here, as the shopping engines will increasingly be a handful of isolated large companies with only some fringe players in the near future.  (Unless some engine does something revolutionary? Any takers?)

A final theory on eco-shopping can be put together, and this is supported by this news on Greenzer and a lot of other companies, that people do enjoy buying green products, but those people want to do the purchasing as a secondary benefit. So going eco-friendly, is not the primary motivation in purchasing, but it’s a nice benefit that will help drive the sale. It’s like buying a hybrid car with great gas mileage. It’s nice to reduce carbon emissions, but it’s even better to save at the gas pump. Ultimately the number of people looking to do ‘green’ shopping as their primary motivational driver is growing, but this segment is still a minority of purchasers.

February 12th, 2010