It used to be that shopping for the best price on a product or service meant a considerable amount of time spent either calling or visiting various businesses to arrive at the best price or deal. But thanks to the internet, not to mention a lot of creative entrepreneurs, finding that best price or deal is as easy as using any number of price comparison websites available on the Internet. The Internet boom of the 90s not only made the technology of price comparisons possible, but profitable as well as these capabilities expanded via specialized websites as well as directory service websites such as Yahoo. Regardless of the product or service needed, price comparison websites can be the closest thing to a personal shopper, and they don't get tired or waste time. Instead, merchants who subscribe to these websites compete for your business. Further, it costs you nothing more for the service. Instead, merchants pay these websites for their products and services to be listed for your shopping convenience, but these websites are far more than just an automated Yellow Pages. As the internet grew in popularity as well as technical ability, more portals were created to allow these websites to flourish, thus allowing service providers to expand the types of capabilities offered to merchants of a growing number of genres. This not only allowed for a growing number of business types to be included, but it changed the business models for many of these businesses as well. A fast-growing subset of price comparison website services is mobile price comparison applications. Not only can consumers access their selected shopping information on their mobile devices such as cell phones or ipods, but they can receive these benefits wherever they are. Bar code scanning is perhaps the newest feature of these devices that will no doubt improve with time and availability. Another significant change in the American business system that is being caused by price comparison websites is the greater ability of technology to compile data on consumer preferences and purchasing. As the popularity of price comparison websites increases, technology that will allow merchants to trace buyers and their buying preferences throughout the buying decision making process will improve the effectiveness of marketing activities in the future. Other technical capabilities such as e-mail capabilities that notify consumers when a price drops to an acceptable level prior to purchase will continue to attract price savvy shoppers.
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