Why you'd have to be a screwball to rely on Froogle (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
It's the fastest-growing company in history, a $120 billion giant so influential that it's rarely out of the headlines. In the seven years since Google launched, it has become not only the internet's biggest search engine, but one of its most ambitious providers of information, offering everything from satellite photographs and video clips to breaking news.
Now Google also wants to be your ultimate personal shopper. Its shopping service, Froogle (froogle.co.uk), claims to be the "smart" way to bag the cheapest deals by comparing prices at thousands of online stores. But should you trust Froogle with your credit-card?
Well, I'd trust Google to check my spellings, write my kids' homework, and give me driving directions to Nobu. But I'd have to be a screwball to consider ever shopping again with Froogle, its half-hearted and amateurish price-comparison site.
On this family's experience, Froogle is one personal shopper who will lie, cheat and misdirect you before you ever reach a checkout. When it's not suggesting bargains that evaporate as you click to buy, it's waylaying you with warehouses of junk irrelevant to your search. Whatever Google's doing with its $120 billion, it's sure not going on improving the shopping experience.
The relationship started with such promise. Organising a joint birthday party for my eight-year-old girl and five-year-old boy, we found party boxes at a reasonable 42p each. A search for "going home presents" made us stumble - the system clearly has dyslexia, suggesting a DVD of "Martin Scorsese PRESENTS The Blues: Feel Like GOING HOME" - but we were understanding.
Besides, we persevered and found Homer Simpson wristwatches for the boys, at £1.99 each, and for the girls sets of Bratz soaps, cool enough for their tween sensibilities and (shh!) just 99p a pair.
Now we were rolling. Why, we thought, this might even save the gruelling descent into the Hades that is Brent Cross. The ultimate test was to source a couple of birthday cakes, one of them starring Spider-Man. That came up with zilch - Froogle had the cheek to suggest that I could not spell Spider-Man correctly - so a more general "birthday cake" search seemed a better bet.
Then it dawned what a poorly designed timewaster Froogle is. With no humans sorting through the catalogues that retailers upload, the results can be absurdly random. We found a dolls' house birthday cake, an inflatable birthday cake ("a charming birthday gift as long as you don't try to light the candles"), and an art print which looked like a birthday cake, but nothing actually to serve on little plates.
The best option was a link to Waitrose's website, where for £13.99 we bought a chocolate layered sponge cake. Unfortunately, it took a five-year-old's furious mother to point out its generous input of orange liqueur. That would explain the burst of attention deficit disorder during the puppet show.
We did find a few reasonable bargains. My daughter appreciated her Bratz Rock Angelz Jade doll, reduced by an online mail-order firm from £25 to £14.99, although we had to add £4 for postage.
The boy was happy with his McFly CD, which Froogle found HMV selling at £8.99, compared with Asda's £13.97, although I was intensely anxious typing its title, Wonderland, into a search engine (wasn't that the name of a notorious child-porn site?).
But there were too many suspiciously cheap prices displayed that seemed designed simply to lead us into third-party websites. Looking for an Apple iMac, I was startled to find Bulls Discounts listing it for £9.99 ... only to click through to an Amazon storefront where the actual price was £850.
In search of a Coldplay album, Froogle led us to a terrific site charging just £1 - only to discover, at the checkout, that we were actually buying a Coldplay "scarce promotional double-sided beermat". And don't even mention the KitchenAid food mixer. Purplepans promised one at £284.50, fifteen quid cheaper than elsewhere, but it had mysteriously disappeared when we clicked to buy. That left Harrods, bizarrely, as the cheapest supplier Froogle could suggest.
Sorry, Froogle, next time we're using eBay. Sure, it might be a Russian hacker you're dealing with. But when they do rip you off, at least they'll put some thought into it.
PANEL
FROOGLE VERSUS THE HIGH STREET
Empty party boxes
Best Froogle price: 50 for £21 at partybox.co.uk
High street price: 50 for £17.50 at local party shop
Saving: minus £3.50
Hula Hoops for party snacks
Best Froogle price: £11.90 for seven 7-packs at Expat Shopping
High street price: £6.93 for seven 7-packs at Tesco
Saving: minus £4.97
Chocolate birthday cake
Best Froogle price: £13.99 at waitrosedeliver.com
High street price: £13.99 at Waitrose
Saving: £0
Bratz Rock Angelz Jade doll
Best Froogle price: £14.99 at mailorderexpress.com
High street price: £20 at local toy shop
Saving: £5.01
McFly "Wonderland" CD
Best Froogle price: £8.99 at HMV.co.uk
High street price: £8.99 at local HMV
Saving: £0
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Series 1 DVD
Best Froogle price: £10.99 at ChoicesUKMovies
High street price: £15 at Fopp
Saving: £4.01
Blank TDK Hi8 video tapes
Best Froogle price: £7.93 for twin-pack
High street price: £9.99 for twin-pack at Jessops
Saving: £2.06, minus £2.99 delivery
TOTAL SAVING WITH FROOGLE: £2.61 but including delivery charges we are actually worse off
(Evening Standard, February 7 2006)
It's the fastest-growing company in history, a $120 billion giant so influential that it's rarely out of the headlines. In the seven years since Google launched, it has become not only the internet's biggest search engine, but one of its most ambitious providers of information, offering everything from satellite photographs and video clips to breaking news.
Now Google also wants to be your ultimate personal shopper. Its shopping service, Froogle (froogle.co.uk), claims to be the "smart" way to bag the cheapest deals by comparing prices at thousands of online stores. But should you trust Froogle with your credit-card?
Well, I'd trust Google to check my spellings, write my kids' homework, and give me driving directions to Nobu. But I'd have to be a screwball to consider ever shopping again with Froogle, its half-hearted and amateurish price-comparison site.
On this family's experience, Froogle is one personal shopper who will lie, cheat and misdirect you before you ever reach a checkout. When it's not suggesting bargains that evaporate as you click to buy, it's waylaying you with warehouses of junk irrelevant to your search. Whatever Google's doing with its $120 billion, it's sure not going on improving the shopping experience.
The relationship started with such promise. Organising a joint birthday party for my eight-year-old girl and five-year-old boy, we found party boxes at a reasonable 42p each. A search for "going home presents" made us stumble - the system clearly has dyslexia, suggesting a DVD of "Martin Scorsese PRESENTS The Blues: Feel Like GOING HOME" - but we were understanding.
Besides, we persevered and found Homer Simpson wristwatches for the boys, at £1.99 each, and for the girls sets of Bratz soaps, cool enough for their tween sensibilities and (shh!) just 99p a pair.
Now we were rolling. Why, we thought, this might even save the gruelling descent into the Hades that is Brent Cross. The ultimate test was to source a couple of birthday cakes, one of them starring Spider-Man. That came up with zilch - Froogle had the cheek to suggest that I could not spell Spider-Man correctly - so a more general "birthday cake" search seemed a better bet.
Then it dawned what a poorly designed timewaster Froogle is. With no humans sorting through the catalogues that retailers upload, the results can be absurdly random. We found a dolls' house birthday cake, an inflatable birthday cake ("a charming birthday gift as long as you don't try to light the candles"), and an art print which looked like a birthday cake, but nothing actually to serve on little plates.
The best option was a link to Waitrose's website, where for £13.99 we bought a chocolate layered sponge cake. Unfortunately, it took a five-year-old's furious mother to point out its generous input of orange liqueur. That would explain the burst of attention deficit disorder during the puppet show.
We did find a few reasonable bargains. My daughter appreciated her Bratz Rock Angelz Jade doll, reduced by an online mail-order firm from £25 to £14.99, although we had to add £4 for postage.
The boy was happy with his McFly CD, which Froogle found HMV selling at £8.99, compared with Asda's £13.97, although I was intensely anxious typing its title, Wonderland, into a search engine (wasn't that the name of a notorious child-porn site?).
But there were too many suspiciously cheap prices displayed that seemed designed simply to lead us into third-party websites. Looking for an Apple iMac, I was startled to find Bulls Discounts listing it for £9.99 ... only to click through to an Amazon storefront where the actual price was £850.
In search of a Coldplay album, Froogle led us to a terrific site charging just £1 - only to discover, at the checkout, that we were actually buying a Coldplay "scarce promotional double-sided beermat". And don't even mention the KitchenAid food mixer. Purplepans promised one at £284.50, fifteen quid cheaper than elsewhere, but it had mysteriously disappeared when we clicked to buy. That left Harrods, bizarrely, as the cheapest supplier Froogle could suggest.
Sorry, Froogle, next time we're using eBay. Sure, it might be a Russian hacker you're dealing with. But when they do rip you off, at least they'll put some thought into it.
PANEL
FROOGLE VERSUS THE HIGH STREET
Empty party boxes
Best Froogle price: 50 for £21 at partybox.co.uk
High street price: 50 for £17.50 at local party shop
Saving: minus £3.50
Hula Hoops for party snacks
Best Froogle price: £11.90 for seven 7-packs at Expat Shopping
High street price: £6.93 for seven 7-packs at Tesco
Saving: minus £4.97
Chocolate birthday cake
Best Froogle price: £13.99 at waitrosedeliver.com
High street price: £13.99 at Waitrose
Saving: £0
Bratz Rock Angelz Jade doll
Best Froogle price: £14.99 at mailorderexpress.com
High street price: £20 at local toy shop
Saving: £5.01
McFly "Wonderland" CD
Best Froogle price: £8.99 at HMV.co.uk
High street price: £8.99 at local HMV
Saving: £0
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Series 1 DVD
Best Froogle price: £10.99 at ChoicesUKMovies
High street price: £15 at Fopp
Saving: £4.01
Blank TDK Hi8 video tapes
Best Froogle price: £7.93 for twin-pack
High street price: £9.99 for twin-pack at Jessops
Saving: £2.06, minus £2.99 delivery
TOTAL SAVING WITH FROOGLE: £2.61 but including delivery charges we are actually worse off
(Evening Standard, February 7 2006)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, February 07, 2006
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