Comparison Shopping Gets Healthy, Threatens Drugstore.com? (DSCM, EBAY, SSP)

There's a new online comparison shopping site specifically focused on the health sector: HealthPricer. This is an interesting phenomenon: comparison shopping sites becoming vertically specialized. We've already seen this in large categories like travel, but vitamins?

One implication: I've commented before that comparison shopping sites put downward pressure on retail prices. If so, this trend is incrementally negative for privately-held retailers GNC (the largest traditional retailer of vitamins) and Vitamin Shoppe. It's also incrementally negative for Drugstore.com (DSCM), which has moved into vitamins, diet supplements and other health-related products. In fact, if you look at Drugstore.com's home page you'll see the tab for the "Natural Store" in prime position, reflecting the importance the public places on this.

Although HealthPricer itself isn't large enough to impact pricing, the trend towards comparison shopping is clear. Comparison shopping sites should rapidly gain traffic as the leaders have been purchased by larger companies - Shoppping.com by eBay (EBAY), Shopzilla by Scripps (SSP), and PriceGrabber by Experian. And the generalised search engines will likely incorporate this data rapidly.

Perhaps a more signficant service would be a comparison site for drugs and medical products. If any reader knows of one, please leave a comment.

Meanwhile, Sound Money Tips, which provides "one quick personal finance tip every day" and often highlights ways to find low prices, is more impressed with HealthPricer than eBay's Shopping.com for vitamin pricing:

What's the advantage of HealthPricer over a broader comparison shopping site like Shopping.com? We ran a typical search for a popular vitamin supplement product: Solgar's B-Complex 100.

On Shopping.com, you have to type that product into the search box, and only one store's prices appear (not much of a 'comparison'). HealthPricer (1) allows you to browse by brand, (2) provides a product page that includes a detailed description, health warnings, and more info, and (3) provides six stores' pricing on a variety of bottle sizes. We're impressed.

« Any opinions expressed on the Seeking Alpha sites are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the opinion of SeekingAlpha or its management. »

Comments

[User 159157]

RxPop.com is another site where you can compare up-to-date prices on over 13,000 medications being sold by approximately 50 of the Internet's largest and most reputable pharmacies.

RxPop.com extends users the ability to search for brand and generic drugs alphabetically, by name or keyword, or by using drop down menus to view the most popular drugs and by drug category. RxPop features a fresh look and feel that incorporates an intuitive, user-friendly navigation and "Call to Action" graphics to help guide visitors through RxPop.com.

RxPop.com is among the Internet's most recognized and fastest emerging Pharmaceutical/Health brands.