The informed customers of today like the power of choice while building a price comparison website. This choice can be in the number of items available on sale, the selection of brands or even types, varietals or sizes on offer. A lot of times, customers feel harrowed as they are not able to find all the products they need under one roof, making them either abandon the website or even delay their purchase plans altogether.

The advent of online marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, Shopzilla, PriceGrabber and many others have made it easy for people to shop online and find recommendations, alternatives and new items in their price range, making shopping a pleasing and interesting experience.

So, what does it take to build a comparison shopping website?

A highly customer-focused website such as a comparative shopping website requires extensive research and a well-thought-of feature set that will go a long way in ensuring the popularity of your website. Here’s our take on what a website needs to be popular with shoppers:

• Competitive research

As is the case with every website or app, competitive research is important to find that niche that you wish to operate in. A niche website will help you find that initial set of customers that will help your website grow its user base until you decide to expand to other markets or options. This user base will also form the community that will drive your website to success. Here, it is important to find the right development or market research partner like Volumetree that can help you get a dedicated project manager who will help you analyze the market, find your niche and get you a workable idea for success.

• Deciding your offering

Now that you’ve found what you wish to compare, the next step is to decide the right feature set for your customers. The feature sets in a comparison website can include community-driven or site-driven comparative analysis. However, with most websites offering the same thing, it is essential to find a revolutionary new way to compare products in your niche. This disruptive or enabling feature of your website can draw traffic, enhancing your user base.

•  Devising the right feature set

With hundreds of such websites out there, how do you drive traffic to your website? The right feature set and tools that your competition lacks is the first reason why customers will switch to your website. Find out what the market needs and what is missing and use that as your starting point.

• Establishing a reliable data source

Establishing a data source is important to ensure that you have the data to drive traffic to your website. Using methods such as web scraping and or web crawling is a good way to initially populate data. Another reliable way is to work directly with manufacturers for product information that can be integrated with your feed. At this stage, you also need to analyze the fields that you wish to populate for this comparison.

• Offering Trial Products

There is no better way to entice customers than to offer a free trial. With free trials on offer, customers can use the products on offer and then help you populate your website and build credibility at the same time.

• Offering free trial periods to providers

Offering a free product showcase trial period to suppliers and providers can help you get your website off the ground with quality products from providers.

• Researching revenue streams

Revenue is essential for any website to survive. Most websites generate revenue from affiliate sales, advertisement opportunities and commissions. You can also strike deals with suppliers to work on a commission-based model.

• Brand management

Your brand is as important as the products on it. Building a brand requires choosing the right name, finding the right budget and developing an identity that resonates with buyers. A unique name is good but might not work very well for SEO and may require a larger advertising budget.

• Budgeting

You must have a budget in mind before embarking a project such as a comparison website. Normally, a website such as a comparative shopping site can cost somewhere between $20-80,000—depending on the feature set on offer.

• Localization

It is a need of customers as they work with suppliers, audiences and like-minded individuals from around the world. localization also helps at the micro-level by ensuring that your customers understand the products and reviews well, so they can make informed decisions—which is the intent of the website that you are planning.

A price comparison website is a great investment, but one that requires commitment, patience and a will to be around for a while. Remember—a comparative website is only good enough if it has mountains of useful data, and that data can only come with time. Creating such a website requires a dedicated development team with years of experience on their backs. With a technology partner such as Volumetree, you can rest assured that your website will be off the ground—fast with a user base to match.

Our extensive experience with building websites that have a marketing plan and an app to match is what differentiates us from the competition. Our quality, reliability and capability are showcased in our diverse portfolio and our list of clients around the world.

Feel free to contact our consultants to see how we can help you get your website off the ground and on the way to success!