"Where does newegg (and the like) get their detailed product specifications?"

Topics: computers, shopping
Asked by flyingpenguin 25 months ago

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I am curious how newegg and other sites like it get their detailed product specifications. Does it come from the manufacturers? Is there a web service or something that all the various manufacturer's post to?

Is there a third party that provides this information? Is that something distributors like Ingram Micro do?

I am trying to find out all I can about how those businesses work and where their information comes from.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.


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"All of the above... except maybe the Ingram Micro part."
 by knowware on Jan 02 2008 (25 months ago)
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I don't know that Ingram Micro offers any specific feeds for product details, although if there's a margin to do it they may.  Most come directly from the manufacturer, or are added to a retail site (through what ever web development channels they may have) by a product manager.

 

Amazon of course has the Mechanical Turk (http://www.mturk.com) that's used to update all sorts of product information for not only Amazon but other businesses as well.  I've never done it myself, but my guess would be that all retail sites have a list of products that need updating and maintenance, and the feeds for those come from every direction.

 

If you're really curious, you might even shoot a note to the webmaster of a specific site and ask.

 

Hope that helps!
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"the material"
 by jhermiz on Jan 02 2008 (25 months ago)
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They work very closely with the vendors, they also get a lot of great reviews from the community.

I've seen companies open accounts with them to get hardware / software shipped directly to them.

 

But the bottom line is they work with the vendors very closely.
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"Mostly"
 by JBENZ on Jan 02 2008 (25 months ago)
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Mostly they come from the manufacturers. If you compare the product specs across a number of sites they are usually very similar if not identical.  Note that product specs are pretty much not subject to marketing hype, they are what they are.

 It's the prodcut "descriptions" that are massaged to make the product look good and to minimize the shortcomings. Mostly they also come from the manufacturers but sometimes also from the retailer or third parties. That's why I always take them with a grain of salt. Sites like NewEgg (and sometimes Amazon) with lots of user reviews are more helpful in that real users will usually ignore the marketing hype and give you a real analysis of the product.
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"Usually a combination of distributors and manufacturers."
 by kcorless on Jan 02 2008 (25 months ago)
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I used to work with a major .com and we had interface files that we received periodically from various vendors that we purchased the items from.
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"from mfg's"
 by whalestongue on Jan 02 2008 (25 months ago)
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they get the info from manufacturers and brands. or they write it themselves. or they outsource it from companies like muze.
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