What do Shopzilla, Food Network, HGTV, DIY, and uSwitch all have in common?

Well, they are owned by Scripps Networks of course! These are all actually sister companies underneath the Scripps umbrella, with each carving out their own special niche in the comparison engine marketplace.

The interesting thing is that looking over these sites, you would think Shopzilla would be the big winner in growth but not the case. Based on Q2 results, Shopzilla is actually down 9.2% from $65M to $59M in profit during the second quarter year to year. On the other side of the coin, HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, and other brands earned a 26% increase to $19.4M in profits. Not a bad growth spurt for the more focused engines. Scripps says that the decrease in profits is reflective of some billing changes at the engine, and this makes sense since traffic on Shopzilla is still rising.

However, I would also take this as an indicator in general that the shopping comparison engine industry will now be moving to more focused segmentation. More and more engines will be created that focus on a specific market segment and target audience, rather than a catch all, superstore model.

July 30th, 2007