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  • Search-sites
       and ratings
       
       • A tale of two
           search-sites
       
       • An argument
          against balance
       
       • You can
           play, too

  • Some well-known
       dealers

  • Dealer strategies:
       a few examples

  • All those
       pretty logos

  • The fine print


  • Relevant reading

It is 1981 in deepest Brooklyn, and two brothers start a small marketing company. The company specializes in hand-distributing printed advertising to homes around New York. They eventually name it DCD Marketing, derived from Dependable Circular Distributors, as it was first known.

In time DCD grows into a full-service advertising agency, offering its clients everything from printing to ad campaigns, representing New York-area businesses and national chains with local branches. When their new website debuts in 2001, they have titled the company DCD Interactive Marketing and among their featured services are Website Design and Internet Marketing.

For a period starting in 2000, DCD produces a series of printed booklets of ads and coupons for distribution around the city, and names it "Shopping Cart of America". But in early 2002 they shift their focus. They start a "new E-commerce Awareness program," distributing printed materials door-to-door to raise local awareness of their clients' internet presence. On their website, they explain their strategy to those clients:

With the recent explosion in consumer use of the Internet and millions of consumers going online, the potential for profit is staggering...

...the Internet community represents a desirable market for the goods and services of many firms, making it even more important that marketers understand this medium... it is time to separate you from the rest of the pack. DCD Interactive Marketing is just the company to get your Internet company the grassroots exposure it needs to compete in this ever-growing industry.

A year later, in the Spring of 2003, they announce the logical next step: "ShopCartUSA.com Launches, Offering DCD Clients Unprecedented Access to Online Market."

Chapter II: The Search-Site

ShopCartUSA has actually been online since the spring of 2001, debuting just after DCD's own website. For its first two years it has existed openly as "the online presence for the Shopping Cart of America... a subsidiary of DCD Interactive Marketing." It iis featured on DCD's website, just as DCD's site is linked from ShopCartUSA. This changes in the summer of 2003, about two months after the "launch" announcement, when mention of a connection between the two disappears from both sites.

While a search-site has information and reviews about many specific products, its more important function is to list dealers and their prices for those products. In the style of many search-sites, dealers displayed highest on ShopCartUSA's list for a given product, or shown with the "Featured Merchant" label, are the ones that pay for that promotion. The site's Merchant Program page is quite open about it:

You select how much you want to pay per click... Your products will appear in the search results according to how much you are paying per click. Products will be listed from highest paying merchant to lowest paying merchant.

Less apparent is the role of the site's ratings system in influencing shoppers. Large, established national stores are listed together with new, web-only dealers (some mentioned on our other pages). As of November 2005, CompUSA, B&H Photo, Ritz Camera and Amazon are rated based on a combined total of 78 reviews, while Broadway Photo has 298 reviews (4 stars), Digital Liquidators has 302 (4 stars), USA PhotoNation has 798 (5 stars), and Express Cameras has 149 (5 stars).

With no ad agency relationship visible, the average shopper might not guess that a paid marketing service is being performed here.

As the search-site industry grows, consumers seek more specialized sites which cater to their specific interests. DCD sees an opportunity in the hot field of digital photography and video, so in January, 2004, DisgitalSaver.com enters the field.

It's not clear (at least to us) whether DCD starts DigitalSaver, acquires it, or just assumes its management. Everything about the site, including an earlier, less successful version, is shrouded in anonymity. Whatever the case, DCD chooses to keep the site's affiliate terms, merchant policies, and relationship to the ad agency private. It uses a nearby mail drop with a non-Brooklyn zip code as its address.

Uniquely among the search-sites we've looked at, this one discourages affiliate inquiries:

...we currently accept new merchants exclusively by invitation from our staff... Please be aware that due to high volume of requests we only respond to select emails.

It's easy to deduce who the paying affiliates are, of course; just look at the dealers listed most prominently, or labeled "Featured Store," for the gadget of your choice. Something else is missing, however -- dealer reviews. There is no clue how those 4- and 5-star ratings are determined, or who has awarded them. Perhaps DCD's experienced advertising professionals have realized that after years of search-site conditioning, most online shoppers assume that those gold stars must represent some real evaluation.

Epilogue

Free enterprise, bolstered by advertising, has been an indispensable factor in our country's greatness. And advertising techniques always evolve to adapt to new technologies.

Although the companies mentioned here are not the major players in their industry, they are instructive -- they are examples of the newest trend in marketing, an effective strategy to draw buyers to particular Internet storefronts. We believe students of the advertising industry should appreciate the psychology and ingenuity that underlies these businesses. And so should shoppers.

• But Wait!  There's more to the story...

Footnotes

The characters in our Tale...