Web Shopping: Bots and Beyond

Among the services available to online buyers are product review sites that offer opinions from experts and consumers, shopping bots that provide price comparisons, and ratings sites that rank sellers based on consumer satisfaction.

To test these sites, I shopped for an array of business-related items--including a fax machine and a digital camera--and personal goodies, such as a Razor scooter (for my nephew, I swear), a fancy-shmancy electronic Lego MindStorm set, a copy of the book In the Heart of the Sea, and a fleece pullover. We also asked a real expert--a professional shopper--to try the sites using her own clients' wish lists (see the "Professional Shopper" section of this article).

But would I be able to trust the advice I received in cyberspace? Would these sites save me time? The answer is, not always. I spent 1 to 2 hours shopping for each item--reasonable, perhaps, for a costly fax machine, but impractical for the Lego set or the pullover. So if you don't mind spending hours on research, these tools can help you find products, spot deals, and dig up reputable sellers. But they aren't the best choice for every item. Research tools and bots, for instance, work best for electronic goods with clearly defined features that are easy to rate--such as the pixel resolution of a digital camera. Clothes and toys, however, come in many variations, and are tougher for price bots to compare meaningfully. Still, when you have a list of items to buy and don't have time to battle the hordes at the mall, online shopping can be a blessing.

Photograph: Steve GoldsteinReview Sites

Whenever I'm looking for a good book, I call my bud Keith, who reads more tomes than a caffeinated college kid cramming for finals. If electronics are on the agenda, Brian's my man. And clothes? I consult Emily, my teenage daughter, of course.

Unless you know exactly what you want when you shop, you probably also begin your task by asking friends for advice. The same applies to the Internet, where product review sites can serve as your shopping guides.

Product review sites cull assessments from experts or from real people who have used the product you want. They can help you determine which digital camera you need, or just help you research an item you plan to buy offline at a store. But the difference between an expert site and one that uses consumer reviews can be the difference between a well-written opinion full of facts and a vague endorsement or a flaming condemnation of a product.

Both types of sites have their pluses. Expert sites compare products and name the best in a category. Consumer review sites offer real-world evaluations of a specific product. One note about expert sites, however: Some of them have relationships with the merchants who sell the goods they evaluate. ConsumerSearch, for example, receives fees from vendors (disclosed in its FAQs) to include links to the vendors' sites alongside reviews.

Just as I started my spree, Productopia, my favorite pro review site, went belly-up. Productopia was my choicest pick because it covered more types of products than any other site. But now I had to switch gears and delve into multiple review sites, each covering a limited variety of products.

All in all, MySimon is my top draw. Its interface is easy to navigate, it lets you search dealers by criteria such as whether they charge restocking fees, and sends e-mail alerts when a product's price drops to a specified amount. BizRate's my second pick for its one-stop approach. It blends vendor ratings with a solid search bot and lists of the most popular products. My only gripe is that its search bot shows fewer vendors than MySimon's, perhaps because the feature is new.

Although comparison bots do a decent job of collecting prices on higher-priced electronics gear, they slip on lower-cost items that have endless variations, such as clothing and toys. RoboShopper and CNet Shopper, for instance, handle electronics nicely, but they don't cover enough categories to be bots of first resort. And as with product finder sites, you should view their results with caution. Almost every bot skews its lists by offering preferred placement to sellers who advertise with them or pay a fee, and many place icons next to vendors who pay for the privilege. (PCWorld.com does not give vendors preferential placement but does let them pay for an icon near their listing.) When a bot's list isn't sorted alphabetically by vendor or by price, it's likely because vendors have paid for top spots. (One exception: BottomDollar lists results as they come in, so sellers at the top are simply those with the fastest Web servers.) Some bots with paid placement let you re-sort results by price. I won't use a bot that doesn't allow it. Excite is the only site mentioned here that doesn't allow you to re-sort.

There is one advantage to paid placement and icons: Vendors who partner with a price bot open their database to the bot, so the prices they deliver tend to be more current. Inviting vendors to pay for placement helps the pricing sites make money, but the practice should be disclosed. MySimon, BizRate, and DealTime mention deals they make with vendors, but RoboShopper doesn't.

Best Price Bot: MySimon is easy to navigate and does the best job at rooting out deals.

One way to verify an online vendor's trustworthiness is through ratings services like Gomez and BizRate, which appraise vendors based on such criteria as ease of use, on-time delivery, and customer feedback. Gomez bases its numbers not on user reports but on features included on a vendor's site--such as whether an online clothing store has a gift registry. The service does post a few user reports, but they're not always current. And Gomez strikes deals with some vendors, making suspicious shoppers like me wonder whether the ratings are entirely objective. At least Gomez discloses this practice, saying it "may receive compensation from or have other business arrangements with some of the businesses evaluated on the site."

BizRate takes the populist approach, collecting thousands of buyer surveys to score a store. Businesses voluntarily join BizRate's program by letting shoppers fill out a survey at the end of their transaction (BizRate also rates nonparticipating stores through an in-house panel of shoppers). But BizRate's ratings are very kind. The lowest-rated online electronics store, for example, still received a score of 6.7 out of 10. Grade inflation is rampant on all rating sites (see "Can You Trust E-Commerce Review Sites?"), so be skeptical and give more than a cursory glance to ratings. BizRate, for instance, gives one site's product selection an impressive 8+ score, but the site's on-time delivery rating was a (relatively) pathetic 6.4--a big consideration if you're doing last-minute shopping. And BizRate's new shopping bot feature--which allows vendors to pay for top placement in search results--raises further questions about the reliability of its ratings. But BizRate's CEO, Chuck Davis, says, "We rate no one.... Customers do. [Our ratings] are always unbiased."

You can search for a specific online store or cruise the categories on either site to locate the dealers you're considering. I used Gomez and BizRate as tiebreakers when the cost-comparison bots delivered vendors that were close in price. For instance, my confidence about buying at Outpost.com--which offered the lowest price on the digital camera--soared when I found that the site received ratings of 9.1 out of 10 at BizRate. The rating services also warned me against one site that offered a very low price on a Razor. Gomez ranked the store 24th out of 30 in its category. And BizRate has a handy shopping toolbar add-on (for Internet Explorer only) that makes vendor comparisons one-click easy. The service isn't perfect, however, and sometimes differences between stores seem minor, even though one may be rated higher than the other on the chart.

But even though Gomez rates more than 6000 online firms and BizRate rates 5000, they do not cover every Tom, Dick, and Harry.com. Several small-scale sites (like MyRazorScooter.com) that appeared on price bot lists didn't appear on either service's rankings. That's when it becomes your call whether to entrust your purchase to an unfamiliar site or shop elsewhere.

Best Vendor Ratings: Although BizRate's ratings can be too kind, it ranks vendors based on the experiences of thousands of consumers.

To improve credit card security, American Express has developed a new plan called Private Payments that generates a one-time transaction number when you click on a link at the store or on a separate icon on your desktop. You can use this number in place of your regular credit card number to pay for purchases. American Express then matches the transaction number to your real credit card number to bill your card, but the vendor never receives your actual card number. The software (which you download from American Express's Web site) works with both Internet Explorer and Netscape (though not with America Online).

Another alternative, PrivateBuy, generates anonymous MasterCard numbers from an account you set up. PrivateBuy will not work with e-tailers that don't ship to a nonbilling address, and it charges $4 each time you add funds to your account. (For more information on some of the online payment schemes mentioned here, check out "Smart Tools for Smart Buyers".

Best Payment Service: American Express Private Payments generates a onetime transaction number to thwart thieves.

Gregg Keizer is a freelance writer living in Eugene, Oregon; David Bock is a writer in Los Angeles.Web Shopping Tips

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