I am sure you’ve done this before while street shopping – Bargain. Russell Peters once said that it’s in the blood of all Indians to bargain wherever they go shopping. Regardless of the country, irrespective of what they’re buying, getting the best deal becomes their eternal right. Well, that’s Peters’ opinion. But, to some extent it holds some truth, doesn’t it? And, why not flaunt it, yeah? If not bargaining, we at least compare the prices to make sure we’re not being harassed by our friends after spending extra money for something, unknowingly. Even travel tickets for that matter differ from airlines to airlines, travel agencies and so on.
One such site allowing users to compare prices of commodities before buying them, tied up with a travel portal that aims at making travel related search easier. That’s right, we’re talking about the recent tie up between PricesBolo.com and iXiGO.com. Their mutual consolidation will add to PricesBolo’s content with air fares of different airlines, hotel booking and so on to iXiGo’s search results.
iXiGO helps search across multiple airlines, hotels, buses, trains and online travel agencies in real-time. While PricesBolo displays a wide range of products with available deals for different brands among various categories. So the integration might give PricesBolo more credibility in terms of having everything under one roof with a baffling competition of portals in the similar arena, like Naaptol.com.
Comparison shopping is an interesting space in India but sadly there isn’t a clear leader. Portals like Rediff and Indiatimes still attract the masses to shop and on the travel side there are the makemytrip’s and yatra’s of the world. I believe what lacks is India is a combination of kickass product (UI + features) + extensive database with realtime prices.
Naaptol too has a travel section which is powered by the same guys, Ixigo. Though not sure about how good the traction levels for travel on shopping sites would be.