Whats Wrong with Froogle?
A lack of promotion is the key reason but there are other issues. The original Froogle had a product category directory and it helped orient visiting consumers to what they believed was a type of catalogue. Consumers need a starting point of reference when searching. Think of shopping at Wal-Mart, where you enter the store and you know where everything is. You can go to the electronics section and find what you’re looking for. The Froogle team inspired by eBay’s success decided that all searchers need is a search box whose only functionality was sorting by price. Now that sounds like its good for consumers, but here’s what happens… Visitors get pushed into shopping only on price. That’s forced Froogle merchants/optimizers to resort to dividing their products up into the smallest unit possible so they can present the lowest price. For example, a sports supplement retailer has to try to sell or at least present individual protein bars rather than selling a box of 10 bars. This is numbe
