| Operating system | Any (web based application) |
|---|---|
| Type | Price comparison service |
| Website | kelkoo.com |
The website Kelkoo is a European price comparison service founded in France in 1999, allowing customers to find information on products they want to purchase, including price and seller information.[1] It was bought by Yahoo! in 2004.[2] It operates in 10 countries, including UK, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, and Belgium.[3] On 21 November 2008, Yahoo! sold Kelkoo to Jamplant, a private equity company.[4]
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Kelkoo was founded in 1999 by Pierre Chappaz and Mauricio Lopez.[5] Initial funding of $3 million was provided by Banexis Ventures and Innovacom. Once Kelkoo merged with 3 other European businesses, it absorbed those founders into one single collective, consisting of Per Siljubergsåsen, William Klippgen, Philip Wilkinson, and Jorge Garcia[6]
In April 2000, within days of each other, Kelkoo merged with Spanish-based Dondecomprar.com[7] and UK-based competitor ShopGenie.[8] In September of the same year, Kelkoo merged with Norway-based Zoomit.com,[9] paying the Zoomit-shareholders in shares amounting to a third of Kelkoo's total equity making Zoomit.com the largest entity within "new" Kelkoo.
In June 2003, it partnered with the European arm of the Microsoft site MSN to provide shopping listings.[10] A similar deal was announced in June 2004 with Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves).
In April 2004, Kelkoo was bought by Yahoo! Inc for €450 million.[11] Yahoo! explained this move as providing advertisers with the ability to target individual products.[12]
In October 2005 a book on Kelkoo appeared in French called Ils ont réussi leur start-up! La success-story de Kelkoo.[13] written by Julien Codorniou and Cyrille de Lasteyrie.
In November 2008, Kelkoo was sold by Yahoo! Inc to the private equity firm Jamplant Ltd.[14]
The name "Kelkoo" is a phonetic spelling meaning primarily the French phrase "Quel coût?", meaning "At what price?". It can also be understood as "Quel coup", meaning "What a bargain".[15]
Kelkoo has been profitable since Q4 2002. Similar to other price comparison services in how it operates, Kelkoo has focused much of its marketing on capturing users through SEO and launching partner sites[16] including ITV's PriceTerrier.com.[17]
In addition to being a price comparison site, Kelkoo also offer an API webservice where other price comparison websites, such as PriceSpin.com[18] shopping comparison website and SmartShopper.com[19] price comparison browser add-on, use data and content from Kelkoo's database.[20] This is a shared revenue business model. Kelkoo offer an affiliate commission to the partner sites who use their data for every qualified click that they generate.
Kelkoo historically was a Europe based price comparison service. In July 2010, Kelkoo launched their USA website. This is a slightly different arrangement, however, as Kelkoo themselves do not gather the pricing information as they do in Europe. Data for the USA website is supplied from other price comparison websites including Shopping.com and PriceGrabber.com.[21][22][23]