Idealo
{{Short description|German price comparison service}}
{{Infobox website
| name = idealo.de
| logo = Idealo Logo RGB blue white letters.svg
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| type = GmbH
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| location = Berlin
| country = Germany
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| founder = Martin Sinner, Dr. Albrecht von Sonntag, Christian Habermehl & others
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| CEO = Dr. Albrecht von Sonntag
Jörn Rehse
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| services = Price comparison
| revenue =
| operating_income = €52,612,705.01 (2012)
| international = yes
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| owner = idealo internet GmbH
| employees = 1100 (2022){{Cite web|url=https://jobs.idealo.com/l/en/|title=Home – idealo careers|website=idealo internet GmbH}}
| parent = Axel Springer SE (74,9%)
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| url = {{URL|idealo.de}}
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| registration = Not required
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| language = German, English, Italian, French, Spanish
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| current_status = Online
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idealo internet GmbH is a German price comparison service launched in Germany in 2000, and since bought by the Axel Springer AG publishing company. The headquarters are in Berlin, Germany. The idealo website allows users to compare prices on a range of products from hundreds of shops.
The company invested 2011 an undisclosed amount of money in Sparheld International GmbH which operates various coupon portals across Europe, including Sparheld.de in Germany and Reduc.fr in France.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gutscheinsammler.de/ueber-uns|title=Über uns ≫ Gutscheinsammler.de|website=Gutscheinsammler.de}}
History
The company was founded by Martin Sinner, Albrecht von Sonntag, Christian Habermehl and others in 2000, using €500,000 in venture capital (of which €350,000 from KfW).{{cite news |title=Unsere 15 Besten |date=19 August 2012 |newspaper=Berliner Morgenpost |url=http://www.morgenpost.de/printarchiv/biz/article108682654/Unsere-15-Besten.html}}
In July 2006, Axel Springer bought a 74.9% majority interest in idealo internet GmbH for an undisclosed sum.{{cite news |newspaper=Handelsblatt |title=Springer kauft Preissuchmaschine idealo |date=25 July 2006 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070228150941/http://www.handelsblatt.com/news/Unternehmen/IT-Medien/_pv/grid_id/1215915/_p/201197/_t/ft/_b/1112267/default.aspx/springer-kauft-preissuchmaschine-idealo.html |archivedate=28 February 2007
|url=https://www.handelsblatt.com/news/Unternehmen/IT-Medien/_pv/grid_id/1215915/_p/201197/_t/ft/_b/1112267/default.aspx/springer-kauft-preissuchmaschine-idealo.html}} Its 2012 revenues were €52,612,705.01.{{Cite web |url=https://www.bundesanzeiger.de/ebanzwww/wexsservlet?genericsearch_param.fulltext=idealo&genericsearch_param.part_id=&%28page.navid%3Dto_quicksearchlist%29=Suchen |title=Bundesanzeiger |publisher=Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz |accessdate=2 February 2015}}
Technology
The idealo sites use a combination of screen scraping retailers' websites and CSV files supplied by the retailers themselves to create a unique database of product offers that is filtered by real people. These prices are matched against a bespoke backend database of products and this matching process is carried out by using a fuzzy logic automated matching system as well as large teams of people also acting as a quality control filter.
Business model
{{unreferenced section|date=February 2015}}
idealo is a consumer review and price comparison website that is similar to other price comparison services in that it is financed by advertisers on traffic quantities as well as quality. Companies advertising their products on idealo track user traffic and clicks through tracking pixels.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ingenioustechnologies.com/project/idealo/|title=Case Study: idealo|website=Ingenious Technologies AG|language=en-US|access-date=2019-01-30}}
Product offers displayed on the idealo website are normally ordered by price where the lowest is shown at the top of any listing, however on product listing pages the products are ordered by price, popularity, user rating or test results. Some other comparison shopping website such as Kelkoo and Shopping.com may feature only paying retailers and allow them to bid for position in the rankings.{{cn|date=November 2019}}
Each idealo product page also features a place for product reviews and shows a trend graph of each product costs over time.
In 2019, Idealo stated it struggles to compete with other services like Google Shopping.{{cite news|accessdate=2019-11-28|title=Axel Springer unit, others say Google still playing unfairly, want EU to act|url=https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-eu-alphabet-antitrust-idUKKBN1Y20W4|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128131239/https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-eu-alphabet-antitrust-idUKKBN1Y20W4|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 28, 2019|newspaper=Reuters|date=2019-11-28|author=Foo Yun Chee}}
Notes
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External links
- [https://www.idealo.co.uk idealo UK site]
- [https://www.idealo.fr idealo France site]
- [https://www.idealo.es/ idealo Spain site]
- [https://www.idealo.it/ idealo Italy site]