Geizhals, known in English as Skinflint Price Comparison,[1][14][15] is a feature and price comparison website,[14][1] focusing on, but not limited to, the German-speaking area.[14] The product filters are managed by an editorial board.[16] For notebooks it has 150 filters,[17] and offers for each product type up to more than 100 different offers from online stores.[17]

Geizhals
Type of site
E-commerce[1]
Available inEnglish and German
Founded1996[2]
HeadquartersVienna,[1][3][4][5][6][7][8] Austria
OwnerPreisvergleich Internet Services AG, Vienna, Austria (part of Heise group)
Founder(s)Marinos J. Yannikos[1][3][9][10]
IndustryInternet
Products2.4 million[11] products (mostly hardware[1])
ServicesComparison shopping website[1]
Revenue€ 14.2 million[11]
Operating income€ 1.5 billion[12]
URLgeizhals.eu, skinflint.co.uk,[4][7] geizhals.at,[1][7] geizhals.de,[3][4][7] cenowarka.pl[4][7]
Launched1996; 28 years ago (1996)[1][3][13]

Scope

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Usage

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The database of products is set up by editorial members. Consumers can find hardware (e.g. notebooks, smartphones, cables, printers), software, electronics,[3] household appliances, sports goods, and drugstore wares.[1][18] It offers filtering for technical features, such as number and version of USB-ports or version of the operating system, specification sheets, test reports,[19] product ratings,[19] price historiy, warehouse stock, shipping costs and rating of the traders.[19] Geizhals is an intermediary between consumer and traders,[19] helping consumers find products and vendors for it.[12]

Importance

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Geizhals is an Austrian company focusing on the Austrian, German, British and Polish customers. Geizhals.at has monthly about 3.5 million[11][19] unique clients,[1][3][20][21] 2.4 million[11][19] products, 280000[11][19] traders.[1] Geizhals.at together with Geizhals.de has 12 Mio. visitors.[22][23] In July 2019 Geizhals.at was on the 41 Position in the Austrian Alexa Rank.[24] Alongside Herold (white pages and yellow pages) and GMX (Mail) – Geizhals is one of the most commonly visited Austrian service providers,[9] and is the marked-leader for price-comparisons in Austria.[9][14]

History

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Geizhals was founded in 1997 by Marinos J. Yannikos, who was a scientist at TU Wien,[2] under the name Hardware-Preisvergleich[25][26] and focussed on traders around Vienna. Since 2005[2][4] Geizhals has a cooperation with heise,[3][27][7] and in 2013[7] and 2014,[7] Heinz Heise bought 75%[4][7] of Internet Services AG shares, and since June 2021 it has indirect 100% of the shares.[2]

Since June 1999 Geizhals provides price comparisons over the website geizhals.at,[14] and is a trademark since 2001.[14] Preisvergleich Internet Services AG was founded in June 2000[2][10] together with e-Matrix Online Business Development AG.[28][27] Preisvergleich Internet Services AG bought 30% of compera.at,[29][11] a Gas-,[29] Energy and Internet[11]-comparison-website. In 2003 Geizhals wanted to acquire geizhals.de, which was owned by another site,[30] gaining an unknown seven-figure price. In 2012 Geizhals bought Geizhals.de, which belonged to a competitor.[30] In 2009 Geizhals extended to the British market and created skinflint.co.uk,[31][10] and one year later Geizhals started developing the Polish branch cenowarka.pl.[32][33] Since August 2013 Heise manages the marketing of Geizhals.de.[2][4] In 2021 Geizhals incurred, for assumed 5 Mio€. ,[29][23] Tarife.at,[29] a website for comparing tariffs of 35[29] different phone-companies for Austrian mobile-phone-number, conveying 50000[29][22][23] customers per month to companies. Tarife.at was founded in 2010[29] by, at that time 18 year old, Maximilian Schirmer,[29] who is committed to the website for at least 5 years[29][23] and also the Trademark "Tarife.at" should be kept.[29][23]

WIPO

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In June 2005 WIPO decided the request of Geizhals gaining geizhals.com, however since 2018 geizhals.com redirects to https://geizhals.eu/,[34] which is owned by Geizhals.

metashop.at

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2004 a cooperation of the Austrian Economic Chamber with Geizhals offer metashop.at.[11] metashop.at is a rented-online-shop-system[35] and should give traders an easy possibility to online-trading.[36][37]

ISP-Comparison

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From 2002[38] to 2017 Geizhals offered a comparison for the yearly costs of internet provides (including modem/router,...).

Features and Services

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An editorial board feeds the product database with product-features, data sheets, price histories, price alarms, shipping times and more.[16] Geizhals offers filters relating time since marked launch.[16]

Geizhals-Forum

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Geizhals manages a Forum[39] since 2000,[40] which can be used for problems with products and traders. In 2019 the gossip-channel was closed, due to provocations & insults.[41]

Cooperations

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Geizhals has Cooperations with Heise online, ComputerBase, PC Games Hardware, Computec Media und winfuture.de,[42] allowing them to embed Geizhals in their websites[43]

Smartphone-Apps

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Since 2011 Geizhals offers Smartphone-App for Android.[18][44] and iOs.[45][44] It has features such as Barcode-Scan,[45][44] to find the cheapest offer or finding the route to the nearest offer,[45] which are not available for the Browser-version.

Revenue

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Traders pay either by (i) Pay-by-click, paying for every user visiting the website from Geizhals, or by (ii) Pay-by-order, paying for evey sale.[46]

Geizhals also gets money by advertisements,[47] however this income is inferior.

Critics

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According to Format Geizhals leaded in Austria to a "price war",[9] that troubles big companies,[9] and lead 2013, according to Format, to insolvency of Niedermeyer,[9] an Austrian electronics trader with a revenue of more than 100 Million per year. According to Format the branch confront the founder of Geizhals with uninsulated hate,[9] because of the decline of prices.[9] However, according to the founder Marinos Yannikos, his only interest was to find for himself a way to save money and time, and did not wanted to withhold it to others.[9]

bepixelung.org

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Manufacturers exerted price-pressure on traders.[48] Some manufacturers provoked Geizhals with withdrawing product-image-rights.[48] In autumn 2008, therefore Geizhals established bepixelung.org for Users sharing their own product-photos, however in August 2017 the website is closed and is now used by someone else.[49]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Geizhals - Preisvergleich - günstig einkaufen - Österreich - Erfahrungsbericht". www.stadt-wien.at (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Geizhals". Heise Gruppe (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "Geizhals". Heise Gruppe (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Online (7 May 2014). "Telekommunikation - IT-Verlag Heise übernimmt geizhals.at". Wirtschaft International - Wiener Zeitung Online (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  5. ^ "Das Team". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  6. ^ "Impressum". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Heise-Verlag übernimmt Wiener Geizhals". DER STANDARD (in Austrian German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  8. ^ "Visit Geizhals.at - Geizhals Österreich". links.giveawayoftheday.com. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i "geizhals.at Geiz rentiert sich für Marinos Yannikos • format.at". 2013-06-13. Archived from the original on 2013-06-13. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  10. ^ a b c "Contact & Legal information". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h "Das Unternehmen". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-01-15.
  12. ^ a b "Geizhals Preisvergleich". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  13. ^ "Geizhals.at - Preisvergleich Internet Services AG: Karrierechancen, Kontaktdaten, Fotos | karriere.at". www.karriere.at (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  14. ^ a b c d e f "WIPO Domain Name Decision: D2005-0121". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  15. ^ "Duden | Geizhals | Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition, Herkunft". www.duden.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  16. ^ a b c "Unternehmensprinzipien". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2014-03-07.
  17. ^ a b "Notebooks Price Comparison geizhals.eu EU". Geizhals.eu. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
  18. ^ a b "Geizhals Preisvergleich – Apps bei Google Play". play.google.com (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  19. ^ a b c d e f g "Geizhals.at - Preisvergleich Internet Services AG". OTS.at (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  20. ^ "ÖWA Geizhals.at-Zugriffsstatistik March 2018". ÖWA – Österreichische Webanalyse - Homepage (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  21. ^ "ÖWA Geizhals.de-Zugriffsstatistik March 2018". ÖWA – Österreichische Webanalyse - Homepage (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  22. ^ a b editorial office of "Brutkasten" (2021-04-28). "Millionen-Exit: Geizhals übernimmt tarife.at".
  23. ^ a b c d e red, ORF at/Agenturen (2021-04-28). "Geizhals.at übernimmt Tarife.at für Millionenbetrag". news.ORF.at (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  24. ^ "geizhals.at Competitive Analysis, Marketing Mix and Traffic - Alexa". www.alexa.com. Archived from the original on 2019-07-17. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
  25. ^ "Das Unternehmen". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  26. ^ it-times. "Geizhals - das steckt hinter dem Preisvergleich-Portal". www.it-times.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  27. ^ a b "Heise Verlag beteiligt sich an Geizhals". futurezone.at (in German). 2013-10-31. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  28. ^ "Unternehmen & Märkte « Archiv « wirtschaftsblatt.at". 2013-10-17. Archived from the original on 2013-10-17. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  29. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Millionenschwerer Deal: Geizhals übernimmt Vergleichsportal tarife.at". DER STANDARD (in Austrian German). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  30. ^ a b "Geizhals kauft .de Domain". futurezone.at (in German). 2012-02-13. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  31. ^ "Geizhals startet in Großbritannien". futurezone.at (in German). 2011-07-11. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  32. ^ "Geizhals.at baut in Polen und England aus". futurezone.at (in German). 2013-07-24. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  33. ^ "Deklaracja prawna". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  34. ^ "geizhals.eu EU". geizhals.com. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  35. ^ "Mietshops - die besten Lösungen bei Onlineshops.de". Onlineshops.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  36. ^ "Re: Was ist der Metashop?". forum.geizhals.at. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  37. ^ "Der Geizhals Miet-Shop". 2014-03-07. Archived from the original on 2014-02-16. Retrieved 2022-06-28.
  38. ^ "Internet-Provider im Vergleich". DER STANDARD (in Austrian German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  39. ^ "Geizhals-Forum". forum.geizhals.at. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  40. ^ "Geizhals". forum.geizhals.at. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  41. ^ "Schließung des Tratsch-Bereichs". forum.geizhals.at. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  42. ^ "Kooperationen". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  43. ^ online, heise. "heise online Preisvergleich / Deutschland". geizhals.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  44. ^ a b c "Geizhals-App für Android-User veröffentlicht". DER STANDARD (in Austrian German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  45. ^ a b c "Geizhals Preisvergleich". App Store (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  46. ^ "Zahlen und Fakten". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2014-03-07.
  47. ^ "Unsere Werbeformen". Geizhals (in German). Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  48. ^ a b Redaktion Elektrojournal. "Geizhals: "Händler haben E-Mails als Beweis für Druck-Ausübung durch Industrie"".
  49. ^ "Be Pixel Lung Latest Health News Portal | Be Pixel Lung". Retrieved 2022-03-13.
  NODES
INTERN 11
Note 4
USERS 1