Should a merchant send all products to a shopping comparison engine?

Should an online retailer send all products to a shopping comparison engine?

Yes…sort of.

Let me explain.

Initially best practices would dictate sending all items. The ideal situation is to then let a statistically important amount of tracking data accumulate. For many merchants, this number would be approximately 30 days worth of tracking data on all products displayed, although this amount may vary depending on amount of clicks being generated or a merchant’s preferences.

Once an acceptable amount of data accumulates, then a merchant should essentially ‘trim the fat’. This means many products may be under-performing or non-successful. These products should then be removed, as the old 80-20 rule still applies in online retailing. That being 80% of overall profit comes from 20% of products. I have seen some retailers who take this even further, limiting to 5-10% of products.

The point is that it’s good to limit products, just like limiting keywords when doing search engine marketing. Remove the items that don’t appear to be performing, although best practices would also suggest looking to see if anything can be optimized for the product (examples being categorization, product content, bid structure, etc.).

Once this process is thoroughly performed, just like seasoning a fine dinner, there should be a good dish served up through the comparison engine just in time for the holidays.

November 8th, 2007