Microsoft’s Cashback for Search Users
In a move aimed at shaking up the search industry Microsoft has announced a new service – Live Search Cashback.
In their own words:
“Now you can get cashback savings by using Live Search to find great deals on the products you want from the stores that you know and trust.”
The concept is simple. Online shoppers can now search for products at Live Search Cashback, compare products based on price, choose and purchase a product, after which you receive cashback savings from Microsoft.”
The programme has launched with over 10 million products from over 700 merchants.
It’s an interesting idea and shows that Microsoft certainly hasn’t been resting on its laurels during its pursuit of Yahoo. The launch of Live Search Club has been credited as the reason behind a recent increase in the number of people using Live Search but this latest development could prove to be a masterstoke.
“Retail history has shown that consumers react favorably to coupons, rebates and sales,” according to a report from IDC analysts Rachel Happe and Susan Feldman. “Our bet is that the next time you look for a product online you’ll check out Live.com to see if you can get it for less on Live.”
Google is estimated to make a profit margin of 25%, with the margin for its core business, sponsored links within the Google search engine, significantly higher. This move from Microsoft appears to be a direct attack on this high margin through sharing the profit margin directly with users.
What’s more, it’s a move aimed at taking a share of the most profitable search market from Google – commercial web searches. Search engines aren’t overly bothered whether they have market share for general research or celebrity gossip search queries. They’re much more interested in those search queries which may lead to purchases. After all, that’s where the advertisers are looking to spend their money. If it proves popular Microsoft Live Cashback could hit Google where it hurts.
What do people look for in a search engine when it comes to commercial searches? Relevancy, defined in terms of product suitability (matching a user’s specifications), reliability (people want to use a reliable store) and price (the lower the better). Live Search Cashback has suddenly given Microsoft the upper hand when it comes to price and reliability.
There is however still a big question mark over whether this is a game changer.
“It’s definitely unique at the moment, and it will definitely cause people to take another look at Microsoft,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of SearchEngineLand.com. “But I don’t think there’s any guarantee that this is a game changer.”
Discount websites are very popular which does point to this being a smart move from Microsoft. But just how successful will it be? Google still has better search algorithm so it could be deemed a match-up between Google’s quality and Microsoft’s price. Google starts out as a strong favourite but only time will tell who’ll come out on top.
