NexTag

Nextag was an independent price comparison service website for products, travel, and education. It started as a website where buyers and sellers could negotiate

NexTag
Nextag, Inc.
TypePrivate
IndustryComparison shopping
Founded1999
FateWebsite offline December 2018; company ceased operations
Headquarters
Redwood Shores, California
,
United States
Number of employees
350+ (2016)
Websitewww.nextag.com

Nextag was an independent price comparison service website for products, travel, and education. It started as a website where buyers and sellers could negotiate prices for computers and electronics products. From 2000, the business model focused on comparison shopping.[1] NexTag also owned Hamburg, Germany-based Guenstiger.de. It provided functionality for tracking the historical prices of a product across various sellers.[2]

Nextag's headquarters were in Redwood Shores, California.[3]

In June 2007, Providence Equity Partners purchased a two-thirds majority of the company for $830 million, valuing NexTag at approximately $1.2 billion.[4][5] Los Angeles-based private equity firm Regent purchased the company in March 2015.[6]

The NexTag.com website went offline on or about December 28, 2018, with no formal public closure announcement.[7][8] Industry sources reported in January 2019 that the company had gone out of business.[7] Merchant reports from 2016 to 2018 indicated declining traffic quality, poor conversion rates, suspected bot or fraudulent clicks, and deteriorating customer support in the period leading up to the shutdown.[9]

In August 2022, the domain name nextagshop.com went online and started to focus on wholesale and retail sales of general merchandise, including both B2B and B2C business; this site is not operated by the original NexTag company.[10] As of July 2026, nextagshop.com is also offline.

Acquisitions

In November 2010, Nextag announced the acquisition of nextcoupons.com, a Santa Monica, California-based coupon company.[11] This was a way for Nextag to bring in more talent and resources.[12] In April 2011, Nextag acquired Germany's Guenstiger.de GmbH, the leading online comparison shopping website in Europe's market.[13] In October 2011, Nextag acquired thingbuzz, a real-time social shopping platform that tracks the conversation about products in the social media sphere, in a bid to socialize the online shopping experience for its users.[14] At the very end of that year, FanSnap was acquired by Nextag.[15] This was the fifth acquisition in only 15 months. According to former Nextag CEO Jeffrey Katz, these acquisitions enabled Nextag to be a one-stop e-commerce shop for various products including tickets.[16]

Recognition

NexTag was ranked by Time magazine as one of the fifty best websites of 2008.[17] Time magazine called Nextag the "plainest comparative-shopping site on the Web", but commended it for quick and comprehensive shopping search results. Nextag provided customers with product reviews and provided the price history for each product.

As of 28 March 2018, it was ranked one of the "10 Top Price Comparison Websites" by Shopify.[18]

Decline and shutdown

No comprehensive official postmortem has been published, but available evidence points to a combination of competitive, operational, and market-structure factors that led to NexTag's failure.[7][8]

Competitive pressure from Google

Google increasingly displayed product listings, prices, images, and merchants directly in search results, embedding price-comparison functionality into its core search experience.[7] Independent comparison engines consequently had to compete with the dominant source of shopping-search traffic, reducing their strategic relevance and user base.

Vulnerability of the cost-per-click model

NexTag depended on merchants paying for referral clicks. If those clicks stopped converting—or appeared fraudulent—merchants could quickly withdraw their feeds and advertising budgets.[7] Beginning around 2016, at least one merchant documented a surge in nonconverting traffic and suspected bot clicks; after NexTag reportedly found no anomalies, the merchant stopped advertising there.[9] This anecdotal account illustrates the marketplace's deterioration but is not a company-wide financial disclosure.

Operational deterioration

By August 2018, merchant reports cited broken seller registration and an over-capacity support mailbox—warning signs shortly before the site vanished.[19] The NexTag.com website went offline around December 28, 2018, and industry sources reported in January 2019 that the company had gone out of business.[7][8]

Industry consolidation

Standalone comparison engines were disappearing or being consolidated while product discovery shifted toward Google, Amazon, large marketplaces, and social platforms.[7]

References

  1. ^ Marshall, Matt (8 April 2005). "Surviving, Thriving. Ojha's Determination Helps Rescue Nextag from Dot-Com Crash". San Jose Mercury News. Archived from the original on 7 July 2008. Retrieved 23 September 2008.
  2. ^ "Consumer Watchdog Asks California Attorney General to Investigate Amazon Pricing Practices After Study Reveals Consumers Are Misled by "Discounts" that Don't Exist". Consumer Watchdog. 20 March 2017. Retrieved 10 May 2017.
  3. ^ "Businessweek Profile". Archived from the original on 28 December 2008. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  4. ^ Delaney, Kevin (9 June 2007). "NexTag Sells Stake to Private Equity". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 September 2008.
  5. ^ "Providence Equity Buys Equity Stake in NexTag". The New York Times. 9 June 2007. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  6. ^ "Regent LP News". Regent LP. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g "What Happened to Comparison Shopping Engine NexTag?". EcommerceBytes. 7 January 2019. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  8. ^ a b c "Nextag Goes Out Of Business". Aten Software. 17 January 2019. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  9. ^ a b "How to Use Comparison Shopping Engines to Increase Sales for Your Shop". MyWifeQuitHerJob. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  10. ^ "Nextag.com - Is Nextag Right Now?". IsItDownRightNow. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  11. ^ CPC_Andrew (9 November 2010). "NexTag Acquires Online Coupon Provider, NextCoupons.com". CPC Strategy. Archived from the original on 15 November 2010. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  12. ^ Wauters, Robin (8 November 2010). "Nextag Acquires Online Coupon Provider NextCoupons". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  13. ^ Rao, Leena (26 April 2011). "NexTag Acquires German Comparison Shopping Site Guenstiger.de". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  14. ^ "Nextag Socializes Online Shopping with Thingbuzz Acquisition" (Press release). PR Newswire. 13 November 2011. Retrieved 13 November 2011.
  15. ^ Constine, Josh (8 December 2011). "Ticket Search Engine FanSnap Acquired By Shopping Site NexTag, But Employees May Get $0". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  16. ^ Rogers, Bruce (13 December 2013). "Jeff Katz's Price Machine Offers Unbiased Shopping Insight For The Budget Shopper". Forbes. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  17. ^ Hamilton, Anita (17 June 2008). "NexTag (in "50 Best Web Sites of 2008")". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on 19 June 2008. Retrieved 5 December 2010.
  18. ^ Hayes, Mark (28 March 2018). "10 Best Comparison Shopping Engines to Increase Ecommerce Sales". Shopify. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  19. ^ "NexTag Reviews". Trustpilot. Retrieved 7 May 2024.

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