Yahoo! Shopping Gets Personal
By Laura Rush
October 17, 2003
Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based
Yahoo! launched a new technology designed to enable customers to easily
find personalized product recommendations.
The technology, called "SmartSort," was made available immediately across
nine consumer electronics categories in Yahoo! Shopping. According to Yahoo!,
the new technology will be integrated into additional categories through
the end of the year.
SmartSort works by narrowing the search for a specific product by taking
a broad category like digital cameras, which has hundreds of choices, and
asking a consumer to rank criteria (i.e. price, features, brand) according
to importance. The top 10 models are then recommended, based on the selected
criteria.
The benefit for small to medium-sized merchants is that inclusion in
Yahoo! Shopping allows them to reach consumers who are actively searching
for specific products.
Online merchants that want to include their products in Yahoo! Shopping,
can sign-up for Yahoo! Product Submit, a service that allows them to promote
their products in various categories across Yahoo! Shopping. The program
provides for the inclusion of products in Yahoo! Product Search and Buyer's
Guides and is based on a cost-per-click price that varies by Yahoo! Shopping
category. Merchants only pay if a consumer clicks on their product listing.
Another way merchants can have products included in Yahoo! Shopping is
by signing up for Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, and e-commerce offering that
allows merchants to create and manage an online store.
SmartSort is available in the following categories: digital cameras,
MP3 players, personal digital assistants, desktop computers, notebook computers,
printers, mobile phones, televisions, and DVD players.
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