1. What is your background, and how did you make it to Shopping.com?

Tomer Shoval: I’m actually a veteran at Shopping.com. I’ve been with the company for nine years. I started as a Jr. Content Specialist 2000. Since then, I have been able to on take more responsibility and move up the management chain. After five years as head of content, I moved to the U.S. (about 3 years ago) to head up sales. Now I’m the Director of North America for the company.

2. What makes Shopping.com different from other comparison sites?

Tomer Shoval: To be honest, it’s not very different. That’s exactly the realization we had as a company about two years ago. The shopping engine space brings value, but it’s very crowded. We all do good job of helping customers, but the challenge is to maintain a large, loyal group of users, as we are all dependent on traffic acquisition. About two years ago we decided to focus on customer support and selection. Two years ago we had 60% of the top 100 online retailers in our site. Today, we have 90% of the top retailers 100 retailers – and, eventually our goal is to have the top 500. Our focus is to create a new experience – engaging customers, helping customers. Most customers do not specifically know what they are looking, so we would like to develop a unique experience that is helpful for them to find what they’re looking for. Further, we are continually adding content and community – Shopping.com also owns Epinions, and this is a huge asset. The goal is to find as many ways to help our customers.

3. What are some channels in which Shopping.com is currently promoted?

Tomer Shoval: Shopping.com is a technology company foremost. We have built a robust platform have a strong presence in the SEO market, and our main goal is to drive return customers. One big draw we have is our ‘distributed commerce network’ that provides merchants’ offers to publishers. This is great for our merchants because it enables us to increase their reach, and by displaying their offers on a large network of publishers, we thus we are able to scale up their visibility.

4. What is the biggest challenge in generating new customers today?

Tomer Shoval: We need to create a unique value proposition: A) one that solves a pinpointed issue such as, “I know I want to buy a camera, now it’s where do I buy it;” and B) our presence needs to be something that is unique, not easy to replicate. We want to create the presence, for consumers, of the sales person who is there to help answer a few questions and give insight to help make the best purchase possible, as easy as possible.

5. The recession has affected every industry. How has Shopping.com responded to the changing marketplace?

Tomer Shoval: People are buying less and are buying less expensive items. It’s been a challenging year for Shopping.com, just as it has been for every site. One interesting aspect for Shopping.com is that, during challenging economic climate, people talk more about where they buy. Shopping.com has an advantage in providing lost-cost value. With that said, we have been able kept our position in the market. In addition, since we have a CPC monetization with our clients, we were able to introduce new promotions. This helps our merchants maintain a sustainable, cost-effective strategy, and we continue to innovate on our pricing mechanisms. Instead of charging the same CPC for, say, all watches, we have different rates that merchants are charged based on the unit price. This is one way we have been able to get our merchants to stay with us. We have been able to stay competitive, and our reach is continuing to grow despite the recession.

6. Do you plan to keep this value-based pricing in place?

Tomer Shoval: Value-based pricing is an innovative product we are very proud of. And the theory behind it is very simple: not all traffic sources and clicks are equal. Meaning, various publishers drive traffic with various conversion-rates. So, we expose our merchants to these different types of traffic in a cost-effective way. We adjust the CPC, based on which publisher is sending the traffic. We believe it is the best long-term approach because it is dynamic, and scalable. It gives the merchant the ability to scale their reach, without filtering through the thousands of publishers. We therefore say, “don’t worry about it, we will adjust the CPC for you.” So if one source is bringing in traffic but it’s low conversion traffic, they will be charged a lower CPC – then, in the future if the conversion rate changes, the CPC will adjust automatically. VBP is the future in our distribution; moreover, it’s good for publishers. If we charge merchants the same for all traffic sources, publishers with lower conversions can dilute the best publishers’ value. Our goal is for our high-conversion publishers to generate the best CPC as well.

7. What do you think the new areas of development are for comparison shopping engines space? What should we be expecting to see as customers?

Tomer Shoval: I can talk about what Shopping.com is doing – engaging consumers before purchase. And, we are always looking for finding new ways to help make this happen. The shopping comparison space has not been that innovative in the last several years, but those who figure out the ‘special sauce’ will reap the benefits. A lot more engagement, and interaction, which will lead to effective narrowing – this will help the customers.

8. With the recent consumer focus on finding the lowest prices, do you anticipate an influx of new comparison-shopping sites?

Tomer Shoval: To be honest, I think there already is a lot of competition. There are dozens of sites aiming at similar things. Some are more specialized in various areas. Value in this economy is important, but I don’t think this will be enough – customers want the end-to-end experience, with other aspects of value. I believe there will be some consolidation, actually.

9. How do you plan to differentiate yourself in the comparison-shopping marketplace?

Tomer Shoval: We have already started releasing major changes. As we near the holiday season, you will notice major changes to the display: more merchandising info, more images, and the introduction of ‘my shopping’, so customers can save their favorite items. This year we invested heavily in infrastructure, and we have upgraded our feeds system to increase selection. I believe in the next 6-9 months, you will see visibly better site, with better content, and with a much stronger community. In 2010, we will be able to show that we are no longer just a comparison site.

10. What will be the biggest challenge you face in growing your business?

Tomer Shoval: Finding a pinpoint, and effectively solving it in a unique way that will drive loyal audience – moving away from traffic acquisition tactics. Who ever can figure out how to do this, and even take short term hits on their P&L, and invest in this – will be able to stick around for the long term