Kelkoo sold by Yahoo!

Yahoo has been rumored to be selling Paris-based comparative shopping site Kelkoo for some time now, and it appears that they have found a buyer. Yahoo acquired Kelkoo in 2004 for €475 million.

The company has been sold to a UK-based private equity firm called Jamplant Ltd (update: here is a profile of the fund) for something less than €100 million, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.

Ex-Kelkoo CEO Pierre Chappaz announced the news on his blog (in french), and a copy of the internal email announcing the acquisition is below.

The company has lost much of its momentum since the Yahoo acquisition in the face of significant competition.

Do we feel the banking crisis already?

Banking crisis (image taken from Emerce)

A few days ago I was asked by Emerce (a magazine focused on Internet) in The Netherlands if my current company (Compare Group) can feel the effects of the banking crisis. In my opinion it is much too early to see any significant effects and most likely consumers will feel the crisis (if any) in the beginning of 2009.

If you can ready Dutch, here is a link to the article in the Emerce.

Microsoft betters offer of Quadrangle to buy Ciao

Microsoft has agreed to buy Greenfield Online, owner of European price comparison website ciao.com, for about $486 million to boost its Internet search and e-commerce business in Europe. Microsoft, whose $47.5 billion bid to buy Yahoo earlier this year failed after a protracted battle, said on Friday the acquisition should benefit its Live Search platform. Microsoft also bought Jellyfish some time ago, which they integrated into their Product Search. This is the second sign that Microsoft is really acting on what their were saying a year ago (read my post on that).

Microsoft’s vice president for Windows and online services, Tami Reller about Ciao:

The team at Ciao has built a passionate consumer community based on intuitive technology and extensive merchant relationships that we believe will deliver incremental benefit to the Microsoft Live Search platform.

Ciao.com offers advice on purchases, mainly of consumer electronics, and encourages users to join a network of shopping experts to share opinions. It makes its revenues from e-commerce, merchant referrals and advertising sales.

Microsoft’s offer of $17.50 per share betters an earlier proposal by media-focused U.S. buyout firm Quadrangle Group (read my former post on this) to acquire the company for $15.50 a share, and represents a slight premium to Greenfield’s closing price of $17.25 on Thursday. On August 26, Greenfield had said it had received a $17.50 per share offer but did not reveal from whom. The latest offer represents a premium of about 10 percent over Greenfield’s closing share price on August 25.

Microsoft said it had agreed to sell off Greenfield Online’s main business, which surveys consumer opinion online and sells the results to market researchers, to an unnamed financial buyer. The companies expect both deals to close during the fourth quarter of 2008. Completion of the Greenfield sale to Microsoft does not depend on Microsoft’s disposal of the online survey business, the two companies said.

Rambler Media fully acquires Price.ru

Rambler Media Ltd., operating one of Russia’s most popular internet brands, has exchanged contracts for the acquisition of the remaining 49% of Price Express LLC (price.ru), a leading Russian product comparison internet service. Rambler already held a 51% stake in Price Express, which it acquired in January 2006. The transaction is expected to be completed in July 2008 upon regulatory approval.

Price.ru is currently the second largest price comparison site in Russia and generated revenues of approximately US$3.2 million in 2007. Price.ru will continue to be operated as an independent brand, but will be increasingly integrated into Rambler’s services.

Mark Opzoomer, Chief Executive Officer of Rambler Media, commented: “The decision to increase our ownership in Price Express reflects our determination to continue to rationalize our product portfolio by either consolidating or divesting operations where we own less than 100%. This process will enable us to optimize our legal structure while focusing on the best services for our users and advertisers. Online comparison shopping and product searches have become increasingly popular in Russia and we believe that owning 100% of Price Express will create more value for our shareholders.”

Ciao! sold to private investment firm

Greenfield Online, Inc. (Nasdaq: SRVY) has announced that it has entered into a merger agreement to be acquired by an entity affiliated with Quadrangle Group LLC, a private investment firm focused on the media and communications industries. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Quadrangle will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Greenfield Online, Inc. for $15.50 per share in cash, or a total equity value of approximately $426 million. The purchase price represents a premium of approximately 17% over the Company’s closing share price of $13.28 on June 13, 2008 and a premium of approximately 26% over the average closing share price during the prior 30 days.

The Board of Directors of Greenfield Online has unanimously approved the merger and recommends to stockholders that they vote in favor of the merger. Albert Angrisani, Greenfield Online’s President and Chief Executive Officer said: “Clearly Quadrangle values Greenfield Online’s two growing and profitable businesses, Comparison Shopping and Internet Survey Solutions, along with their global leadership position, satisfied clients and talented employees. We expect the transition will be positive for our business, our customers and employees, and we look forward to leveraging Quadrangle’s expertise in the media, communication and information industries.”

Gordon Holmes, Managing Principal of Quadrangle said:

“Having followed Greenfield Online closely over an extended period, we became increasingly impressed with its international leadership position in online comparison shopping and survey research, as well as its record of strong growth. Using our New York and London offices and our new office in Silicon Valley led by Dan Rosensweig, we were able to fully analyze and appreciate the strength of Greenfield’s global platform, and determine that it represents an attractive investment opportunity for Quadrangle, consistent with our ongoing focus on the media and communications industry.”

Dan Rosensweig, Operating Principal of Quadrangle said:

“Greenfield Online’s internet-based business differentiates itself with a strategic position based on developing strong communities and offering valuable review and survey content. I am confident that with Quadrangle’s extensive experience in online businesses, we will be able to help the company to expand its activities and continue to achieve significant growth.”

Dooyoo sold to LeGuide.com

Finally Dooyoo has been acquired by another CSE. It was no secret that Dooyoo was for sale for around EUR 10 to 15 million euro. For now no details about the deal will be disclosed, but it is expected to be a bit lower than the numbers above. What LeGuide.com will do with the Dooyoo brand remains unsure, but considering the large amounts of money that were put into the Dooyoo brand it is a safe bet to say that they will leave it untouched. Most likely scenario will be that LeGuide.com will rebrand their current (unsuccesful) brand Antag into Dooyoo. LeGuide.com also has a ‘shop directory’ in a number of European countries.

For more info, read on at LifePR

Microsoft to provide cashback for Live Search

Just recently I mentioned that Microsoft was reviving Live Search for Products. And quite a while ago I wrote about Microsoft acquiring Jellyfish and I wondered when they would have integrated Jellyfish in Microsoft Search. Well, that time has come. Micrsoft just announced their Live Search cashback program (which is nothing new, Jellyfish is doing this for years now). However, it is a good PR stunt. Microsoft about their ‘new’ service:

Now you can get cashback savings by using Live Search to find great deals on the products you want from the stores that you know and trust.

Here you can see how it works. But, you could also go to Jellyfish

New release Google Product Search

Yesterday I mentioned that Microsoft had made some changes in their Live product search. It now seems that Google is also testing a new version of its Product Search with actual CSE features. This includes the aggregation of merchant offers by product, compare functionalities, technical specifications of products and reviews for products. This new version was first seen in December ‘07 by eCommerceOptimization. The changes are only visible on Google.com. On local sites of Google in Europe nothing has changed (yet).

It will be likely that Google will start promoting this service in their regular search results. Currently they still use the ‘shopping bag’ icon, but according to SearchEngineland Google is also testing with displaying the product image.

Microsoft reviving Live Search for products?

According to Liveside.net Microsoft has just launched a brand new page for product search. Microsoft hasn’t improved product search for quite some time, so this might be a sign that they are taking this more seriously. In a previous post I mentioned that Steve Balmer acknowledged the importance of comparison shopping. He also said that they should be able to generate 25% in advertising.

Currently the Live Search for Products doesn’t work, which is pretty silly. Every search results in the following message:

Sorry, we did not find any product results for this search.

If Live Search for Products actually works then it would look like the image below. You are now able to refine the search results by user opinions, brands, category, and price range. Liveside.net concluded that in comparison to the old product search, search results have improved dramatically. Other improvements, although available before as part of the Shopping Search vertical already, include the ability to compare prices and view user ratings and reviews.

The new look of Product Search:

Let’s see if Microsoft will integrate other features soon. I still expect some kind of integration of Jellyfish in their Product Search.

Is ‘green’ a hype or there to stay?

In October last year I already wrote about CSE’s launching theme pages focused on the ‘green trend‘.

More and more comparison engines are leveraging their (costly) software to add new ‘niche’ or theme sites, like Shopgreen (from Pricegrabber) and TheFindGreen (from TheFind) [......] I expect many more of these theme sites to pop-up, but with Al Gore pushing for a better climate, for now the green trend will be the most prevailing one.

Well, it didn’t take long. The first real green and environmental conscious CSE is out, Greenzer. At the closing of Earth day Greenzer.com lauchned their public beta. Greenzer highlights some of the key green attributes for products to make the search easier and more informative. They also provide a score for a certain brand/product.

The Greenzer score is built up out of 4 elements:

• A Climate Counts score
• A Greenpeace score
• EPEAT score
• Energy Star certification

In the case of the Toshiba Tecra notebook this leads to a score of 8.6. See the image below!

Greenzer.com has a nice look-and-feel. I also believe that the ‘green’ element will attract quite a few visitors. However, they will also have to provide an excellent selection of shops. I am curious if they will also only admit ‘green’ shops. That is something that I did not see yet. Maybe something for the next release!