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Let's make a deal Founded by two Israeli high-tech entrepreneurs in December 1997, DealTime went live with its online shopping comparison service in June 1999, backed by venture capital funding from firms like Israel Seed Partners and Odeon Capital Partners. Now based in New York, the site uses an automated shopping robot called a "bot" to comb hundreds of web sites - including online merchants, auctions, classifieds, and group buying sites - to find the lowest prices on thousands of items. As a number of new shopping comparison sites mounted a direct challenge to DealTime's service, the company launched a $25 million advertising campaign in the fall of 1999 intended to raise the company's profile prior to the crucial holiday shopping period. A wide range of products and services Price-conscious shoppers can browse DealTime's categories, which include pet supplies, electronics, health & beauty, and video games, and then search by brand name, product model, or keyword within each category. Once a search is completed, consumers have the option of sorting results by merchant, merchant rating (from bizrate.com), product, deal type, or price. DealTime then provides a link to each merchant's web site. A partnership with epinions.com spawned dealtime.epinions.com, which provides access to reviews of consumer products. Other features of DealTime's main site include the Desktop Notifier, a software download that provides price updates; e-mail or pager notifications of lower prices; and DealAgent, a service for merchants that tracks shoppers' click-throughs and price requests in each category, and allows merchants to immediately respond by submitting a new price on the site. The high-stakes battle for the top As a number of new shopping comparison sites mounted a direct challenge to DealTime's service, the company launched a $25 million advertising campaign in the fall of 1999 intended to raise the company's profile prior to the crucial holiday shopping period. Since that time, Dealtime has enjoyed more than a million visitors per month to its site. With proprietary tools like the Desktop Notifier and DealAgent, as well as its partnership with epinions, DealTime has thus far been able to stay competitive with both upstarts in the online shopping comparison arena and with mySimon, the acknowledged leader. In February 2000 the company announced that it had raised $50 million in private placement. In May, it came out with a mobile phone service, DealTime Mobile. That same month, it announced the acquisition of evenbetter.com, a German comparison-shopping service, as part of a Joint European Venture with German media giant Bertelsmann. In addition to its U.S., British, and German sites, Dealtime hopes to continue expanding in 2000 with new shopping sites for France, Japan, and Latin America.
DealTime lists job openings on its web site for its New York corporate headquarters, but not its Netanya, Israel research and development facility. Prospective employees can e-mail their resumes to jobs@dealtime.com.
Online price comparisons
Bottom Dollar;CNET Shopper;DealPilot;E-Compare;mySimon;PriceGrabber.com More Company Profiles For more career information, go to Vault.com ©2000, Vault.com Inc
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