mShopper, a price comparison and shopping service for mobile phones, has just launched.
There are a few companies, ranging from giants like Amazon and Yahoo to start-ups like Frucall and mPoria, making moves in the mobile e-commerce market, but it’s early and a clear winner has yet to emerge.
mShopper has a destination site, but the key will be distribution, and according to Boulder, Colorado’s mShopper, it has already signed a handful of deals with mobile carriers, including a major one. mShopper’s chief executive, David Gould, wouldn’t say more. However, if the company’s strategy is to power mobile e-commerce sites for carriers and partner stores, it’s on the right track: that’s where the real money will be.
As far as mobile sites go, mShopper’s is quite solid. Frucall lets you search for products by name, but it’s primary means of finding products requires you to enter a UPC code (see coverage here). While quite useful for precision and arcane products, searching for UPC codes might not be how most people shop. mShopper’s site requires very little text input and as a result, navigating the site is a smoother process.
There are two main features: PriceIt and BrowseIt. As the names suggests, PriceIt is a price comparison engine that finds the best price available in mShopper’s database of stores. The latter lets you browse through this database on your own. PriceIt is intended for use while shopping in retail stores, so you can test out a product hands-on, then find a better price, robbing the retail outlet of a sale. While the company has data from a wide range of stores, from big box to tiny niche, PriceIt only searches that range, not the web itself. Frucall offers quite a few other options. See the helpful demo on its site. It says reviews are coming soon.
We tested mShopper on both EDGE and 3G connections, and found it to be intolerably slow on EDGE, so much so that the process doesn’t seem worth the money we’d save. 3G was excellent.
The company has raised a small angel round, but is primarily self-funded. It should consider spending a few bucks to replace its hideous logo.
