It may be seen that I am a bit old school with regards to Comparison Shopping Engines but Kelkoo and Shopping.com play a role in my thought processes. The fact that they have been around for a while and were once upon a time the market leaders in Comparison Shopping should not be underestimated. Over the last 18 months – 2 years both have fallen behind; both brands have gone through changes with regards to ownership in the last 5 years and have also seen some stagnation in terms of unique views and traffic.
Kelkoo has joined Shopping.com with some changes and seem to have had a redesign. They also seem to have had a change in corporate identity and branding.
Internet Retailing mentions that Kelkoo is aiming to become “the best shopping and travel comparison site in Europe.”
The shopping and travel comparison site says it has drawn on research that found that only 3% of consumers buy purely on price. It also found that many research their purchases on more than one price comparison website. It now aims to make itself a ‘one stop shop’ for shoppers.
Marketingweek.co.uk further adds to the reasons for the Kelkoo redesign. Note the comScore total unique visitors table.
The site, which launched in 2000, hopes that the relaunch will help it “break the comparison site mould” and regain its position as the “number one shopping and travel destination”. Chris Simpson, Kelkoo CMO, says: “When we started our consumer insight, it was clear that the brand didn’t have a connection with people. People knew it, and it has a long term residence in the mind, but no one knew why they knew it.”
A Kelkoo Press Release Monday 10th October 2011: Kelkoo, the shopping and travel comparison website, today reveals the result of a major brand and business overhaul across its ten European and three international markets. Following extensive consumer research and a site re-design which will be completed across all markets by the end of October, the company announces its ambition to again become the number one shopping and travel destination, breaking the traditional price comparison mould. Both the travel and shopping brands have undergone an overhaul with the shopping website recently adding brands such as very.co.uk, Isme.co.uk and Gameplay.co.uk. Shoppers can also benefit from access to 2.5 million consumer reviews, almost two million expert reviews and 2,290 buyer’s guides. A pioneer of its time, Kelkoo was one of the first shopping comparison sites and enjoyed huge success leading to its acquisition by Yahoo! in 2004. Four years later, it was acquired by current owners, Jamplant, who bought the site with the ambitious goal of making Kelkoo the most successful shopping and travel destination on the web. The website will continue to evolve but the new site aims to bring consumers a one stop shopping experience so there is no need to compare products and prices across multiple websites. Kelkoo is built on the strapline, ‘Zoom in. Buy brighter’ which encapsulates the brands vision to add value to every stage of the consumer shopping experience, delivering so much more than just price comparison including:
- A visual search experience that closely replicates the in-store shopping experience
- Access to 2.5 million consumer reviews from Reevoo
- Almost 2 million expert reviews
- Social media functionality
- 2,290 buyer’s guides
- Price comparisons
- Trusted, recognised retailers
Some thoughts on the Kelkoo changes:
- Kelkoo Shopping as seen in the logo seems to indicate that Kelkoo want to be seen as a global player. Note no region mentioned, just Kelkoo shopping with 2 tabs on the right handside indicating their 2 major areas of interest (Shopping and travel). The orange color in the background seems be their corporate colors and this new logo is seen on their Brazil and US versions as well.
- The move into travel is an interesting play but is clearly part of the shift away from being seen as a traditional Comparison Shopping engine. Kelkoo is splashing out Euro 2 million to reinvigorate its travel search service, with the first results being seen in the beta version of Kelkoo Travel.
- Above the fold on the home page (the prime real estate for all comparison engines and ecommerce websites) has a focus on a slider with products and no advertising is seen above the fold. The advertising is seen on the right handside on the product pages.
- The biggest change that needs to be mentioned is the lack of the category tree on the left hand side. The category tree was for years the most used element by most CSE’s. The fact that Kelkoo and Shopping.com both have moved away from this, is indicative of a change of thinking seen across the entire industry.
- It will be interesting to see what kind of impact their partnerships with Reevoo and TripAdvisor will have on their overall SEO and organic rankings. Syndicated content is something that needs to be carefully implemented otherwise duplicate content will harm organic traffic.
The entire redesign process seems to have been done to ensure that their organic SEO is not hurt by all the changes.
Delivering the new product bit-by-bit to avoid any big-bang effect; measuring the business performance through AB testing; keeping the new branding at the very end to signal the redesign is complete… This safe approach was also required to protect our SEM / SEO traffic & performance, especially with the challenge the Google Panda update has represented. Analyzing how Google reacted to the new features and adjusting the feature set have required a lot of effort – but the numbers suggest it was the right strategy.
As an outsider it seems that Kelkoo are trying hard to become relevant again. They have made some strategic appointments and are trying hard to blow life into their services. Kelkoo Travel, Kelkoo Select (daily deals) and various other ideas have all shown that Kelkoo are trying.