As to be expected this time of year, all of the shopping engines are bumping up their minimum CPC rates for the holiday shopping season. This is typically from around the middle of November through the end of the year. So be prepared for a spike in your CPC spend. Also be prepared for a bump up in your conversion rate, which is typical this time of year as more holiday shoppers are clicking that buy button.

There is one suprising exception to all this though: One shopping engine, Shopping.com, has actually REDUCED minimum bids in 25 categories. The rest of their category CPC rates are either staying flat or increasing 20% as per the industry norm (most CSE’s are bumping up rates 15 – 25%). There has been a lot of speculation as to why this reduction in CPC on those categories has taken place. This is of course Shopping.com we’re talking about! I’m not sure either, but I wonder if it has anything to do with this article from their July newsletter. They highlight the top products that shoppers are searching for, and ask that all merchants list these on Shopping.com so that they can be the “premier online comparison shopping engine on the web”. As you look over those top products and compare it to their holiday rate card, you can see that they have reduced, or left flat, the minimum bid on the categories in which these top products lie. It sounds like Shopping.com is simply trying to keep up with, or keep on top of, the competition. And maybe the most efficient way to do that is by maximizing product feeds from their large pool of existing clients, as opposed to recruiting new merchants with those items. Hmm.

Either way, this is great news for those of you who sell consumer electronics. This is a competitive category, as you know, so hopefully this will make things a bit more comfortable as you advertise these items during the holidays!