Price Comparison Round Up

Below are listed links to Price Comparison sites on the net that are relevant to the UK and Music. Think you've found a bargain on a Music Shop Site, think again,as I list what shops each of the comparison sites search. I wonder how long it will be before someone develops a Meta search engine for these comparison sites. I have not included the direct link to the music part of each of the sites, because sites change all the time, and their would be broken links everywhere. Its also worth noting that each comparison site Adds and deletes Music Shops  by the day, providing if the music site has paid each of the comparison site its sponsor cash !. So these results are correct at time of creation 28/02/01


Netsounds
261 shops
The place to start , this searches loads of Independent shops all over the country, but none of the majors.

Kelkoo
8 Shops
Very Popular, I seem to Remember this having more shops to search, but as a guess its increased £££ as its got popular and hence the shops must have dropped out. This is one of the most well known Price Comparison sites and is very relevant/user friendly, I feel its popularity may dwindle if it doesn't offer more shops to search soon. This was formely known as www.shopgenie.co.uk

Searches the following

CDWOW!
Tesco
Amazon
Audio Street
Bol
Vinyl Tap
Whsmith
CDZone


Shopsmart
8 shops
This probably more well known than Kelkoo, although I don't know why. It differs from Kelkoo in the way that as soon as you type in an album/artist, it will try to locate a pic/track listing of the album. This is very good if you are searching for a mainstream commercial disc and sometimes even gives Real Audio snippets!. The problem arises if you are searching for something a litte less well known, billy and the bollocks for example !. it won't find anything so you can't compare prices, which is a bit poor. This is not bad but tries too hard on presentataion (unlike me) and not hard enough on the comparison side, which lets face it is what we are using it for.

101CD.com
bol
amazon
whsmith
audiostreet
CD999
Jungle
CDWOW


Dealtime
30 shops (read below though)

30 shops WOW, your thinking, but not all these shops are located in the UK, so although the CD may be loacted in Germany, the chances are the P+P will kill you. Although this is not always the case of course see below for more info. I have divided each of the sites into countries for convenience

UK

audiostreet.com
WHSmith Online
jungle.com
bol
101CD
CDwow!

USA

Buy.com USA but they have an option to deal in £
cdnow USA  but they have an option to deal in £

mymusic.com
Switchouse
Playcentric
half.com
Musicselection
amazon.com
alphacrase.com
barnesandnoble.com,
BlueLight.com
djangos.com

German

jpc.de
amazon.de
buecher.de
bol.de

Italian

netmusic.it
cdcity.it

The following sites are searched, but were broken links at the time of use

borroworrob
drwax.com
Quickmusic

Bottomdollar
6 shops
Only 6 measley shops, what type of sponship to these people charge ?. Well not a lot to say about this one, it has the least shops so it usually provides less results than the other comparison sites.

secondsounds.com
musicstop
whsmith
101cd
vinyl tap
cd paradise


Easyvalue
12 shops
A relatvely new Price Comparison site, I didn't find it when I searched a few months ago(maybe I juts wasn't luck enough to find it). This is pretty good and searches a lo of shops located in the UK. I haven't used this one enough to give a verdict though.

Tesco
101CD
Musica ?
Jungle
CD999
Audiostreet
Whsmith
Cdzone
Bol
Amazon
Davista
HMV


Pricechecker
9 shops
Another one which I just recently found

101CD
Amazon
Audiostreet
BOL
CDParadise
Davista
Frontstage
Play247
Proxis

GEMM
This is a USA based search engine rather like Netsounds, it searches independant shops around the world. Its not so much as a price comparison tool, than a record hunter If you are looking for something that no one can seem to offer and are prepeard to pay over the odds for it, this is the site for you.