Comparison Shopping Arbitrage
From Andrew Holt regarding Wize.com:
I’m curious how these companies are doing. We started a company (dontbuyjunk.com - no longer running) in 2004 that did exactly this, which ViewScore essentially copied in their initial version (seriously). The site was popular, but we learned a valuable lesson: shopping/product comparison sites are arbitrage businesses. Without a large budget for AdWords or a similar means of driving traffic, the site simply couldn’t run. Unfortunately, even with a very unique algorithm and value proposition, consumers are given far too many choices when making a purchase, and it’s very difficult to generate significant revenue from organic traffic.I’m guessing the initial funding could be enough to get it off the ground and sustainable, but I’d be curious how profitable the business is.