MSN Shopping BETA Search Engine Launches

MSN Shopping BETA Search Engine Launches

MSN Shopping BETA launched today as an interesting addition to the MSN Search family and direct competitor to Yahoo Shopping, Froogle, Shopping.com and others. According to Brian Smith at ComparisonEngines.com, MSN Shopping BETA has increased the number of stores by 60x, the number of items by 5x, and the number of offers by millions. Brian also had a chance to speak with Chris Jolley, Group Programming Manager of MSN Shopping about the MSN Shopping BETA launch.

Here’s a bit of what Chris from MSN had to say: “Today is the day Microsoft has entered the comparison shopping space. We’ve put a ton of investment into building a better shopping comparison tool. [The site] is our recognition that this is how consumers want to shop. Microsoft has always been good at building great technology. A great selection without a good way to find a product is bad. A great tool with no selection doesn’t help either. We’ve coupled technology with a broad selection of products and merchants. This is a case where 1 + 1 = 3.’

“Right now we are using Pricegrabber, but we have also increased the number of merchants we’re working with directly. The long term the strategy is to explore and investigate ways to bring in relevant offers to consumers. We are launching with Pricegrabber because of the number of merchants they have and the ratings they have. Our relationship gives us a jumpstart in terms of ratings and reviews so we aren’t starting from scratch. We are also taking feeds directly from our own merchants.”

Chris went on to explain a bit more on what makes MSN Shopping different from other comparison/shopping search engines.