Pangora Speaks the Language of Online Shopping with CNET Channel DataSource™

As a cross-portal shopping platform with 10 million products from more than 1,900 integrated shops on 42 leading European online portals, Pangora makes the language of comparison shopping universal. In addition to Lycos, premier Web portals such as AOL, AON.at, Freenet, HotBot, T-Online and Wanadoo, among others, have recognized the power of Pangora, helping make it one of the top two providers of comparison shopping technology in Europe. Through these portals, more than eight million consumers in Great Britain, France, Austria and Italy use Pangora to search and shop for products from digital cameras to laptop computers to printers and more.

“We’ve played an important role in the ongoing development of e-commerce in Europe,” says Christoph Roeck, managing director of Pangora. “Though our origins are in Germany, our user-friendly search functions and high standards of technology are universal and proven in major European markets.”

Comprehensive Comparison Shopping Pairs Product Data, Merchant Offers

Pangora technology is designed to lead online shoppers to a diverse range of products offered by online shops ranging from generalist stores to specialty boutiques. Portals that want to offer comparison shopping to site visitors partner with Pangora to provide the search functionality and content. Merchants register their online stores with Pangora so that their goods and promotions are offered to consumers who shop on the portals’ sites. The portal and Pangora each receive a commission based on the traffic that is delivered to the merchant’s site.

Online shoppers’ increasing savvy about comparison shopping has meant that service providers like Pangora are thriving – and market competition is growing. “We expect U.S. companies, and local start-ups, will go after our market share in Europe by the end of 2005,” says Roeck.

As a result, Pangora has redoubled its commitment to the quality of service it provides. Until 2004, the information that the comparison shopping engine returned to online shoppers was limited to offers and product data supplied by merchants. “From the photos we displayed to the descriptions we gave, there was a wide range in quality of data from e-tailer to e-tailer, and consumers had to make a decision based on that information. We could see the tremendous appeal of merchant-neutral details in addition to each online store’s offer.”

Pangora's staff evaluated whether to produce this neutral information itself or partner with a data provider. In 2004, Pangora chose CNET Channel’s DataSource™ for technology product content that would far surpass that of competing comparison shopping services. The company was impressed by the vast amount of content that DataSource acquires from manufacturers and other trustworthy sources, as well as the capabilities of CNET Channel professionals to assist with integration.

"Language and translation capabilities were very important to us because our portal partners serve shoppers in four languages,” says Roeck. “We also recognized the challenge of aggregating merchandise data in multiple languages and maintaining it ourselves. CNET Channel was selected above other pan-European competitors because of its vast product data catalog in German, English, French and Italian, and its ability to offer deep, accurate, high quality data at a reasonable cost.”

Germany was the first market where Pangora launched comparison shopping enhanced by DataSource’s product details. To pair details for thousands of items with merchants’ offers in Great Britain, France, Italy and Austria, Pangora developers now are tackling differences in product identification that arise from European merchants’ ability to specify these codes from country to country.

“We are using linguistic matching to pair product descriptions with merchant offer descriptions, and DataSource gives us a solid foundation on which to base that effort,” says Roeck.

“There’s a secondary benefit to this effort, too, which is that now online shoppers can define search parameters such as weight, if they’re looking for a really light portable laptop," adds Roeck.

CNET Channel Partnership Strengthens Relationships PANGORA has with its Portals

Roeck notes that partnering with CNET Channel has benefited all three parties in the value chain – the portals, consumers, and merchants. “Our portal partners really appreciate that functionality we now deliver, because it attracts – and delivers – more online shoppers to merchants.”

The power to make better-informed purchases appeals to online shoppers, who perceive it as a service of the Web portals they use. Although the DataSource-driven enhancements have just been launched, Pangora’s portal customers indicate online shoppers are doing more research, and their behavior suggests they are more loyal to their portals, as well.

“Pangora has managed to significantly improve the user experience,” says Roeck. "I believe DataSource is among the significant factors that have influenced early changes in shopping behavior, which in turn increases revenues for merchants, for portal partners – and for Pangora.

DataSource Ensures Future Competitors are No Comparison to Pangora

As Pangora completes its linguistic matching effort, Roeck sees competitive advantage in the completeness of DataSource content and its potential to improve on market-leading comparison shopping technology.

“With a base of CNET Channel's superior, independent product information for a huge range of products and manufacturers, and one of the most popular tools for comparison shopping, we believe competitors will be hard-pressed to offer portals and merchants the same caliber of support Pangora provides in so many countries,” Roeck says.

About Pangora

Pangora is a service provider of product search technology on the Internet and offers complete shopping solutions for portals in Europe. Leading portals such as AOL, Wanadoo, T-Online and Lycos count among the 42 portal partners that use PANGORA technology. The Pangora system is flexible and modularly built to meet the specific needs of each portal. Pangora employs Europe-wide 70 people. Company headquarters are in Munich. For more information on Pangora visit http://www.pangora.com