Bizrate Insights Inc. is a U.S.-based

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...

firm specializing in consumer-generated insights for online and omnichannel retailers. Its feedback solutions have been widely adopted by retailers seeking to better understand shopper behavior, improve user experience, and benchmark performance against industry standards. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, it operates as a subsidiary of

Dotdash Meredith Dotdash Meredith (formerly The Mining Company, About.com and Dotdash) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, hom ...

History

Binary Compass Enterprises, later Bizrate, was founded in June 1996 by classmates at the

University of California Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the Cal ...

and

Wharton School of Business The Wharton School ( ) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. Established in 1881 through a donation from Joseph Wharton, a co-founder of Bethlehem Steel, the Wharton ...

, Farhad Mohit and Henri Asseily based on a school project they authored while attending the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The first retailer reviews were collected in 1997 after launching and rebranding the website as Bizrate.com. Services were later expanded to include

comparison shopping Comparison or comparing is the act of evaluating two or more things by determining the relevant, comparable characteristics of each thing, and then determining which characteristics of each are similar to the other, which are different, and t ...

. In 1999, Bizrate partnered with

Consumer Reports Consumer Reports (CR), formerly Consumers Union (CU), is an American nonprofit consumer organization dedicated to independent product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy. Founded ...

to provide ratings in both the print and online editions of the ''

''. In 2004, Bizrate rebranded to

Shopzilla Connexity Inc. is a privately held Los Angeles operator of shopping web sites, including Shopzilla.com. Originally started as comparison shopping website Bizrate.com, the company changed its name to Shopzilla in 2004, and changed again to Conn ...

. In June 2005,

E.W. Scripps Edward Willis Scripps (June 18, 1854 – March 12, 1926), was an American newspaper publisher. He and his sister Ellen Browning Scripps founded the E. W. Scripps Company, today a diversified media conglomerate, as well as the United Press new ...

acquired Shopzilla, which included all operating websites and Bizrate Insights. In June 2011,

Symphony Technology Group STG Partners, LLC (STG) is an American private equity firm and based in Menlo Park, California. Its predecessor, Symphony Technology Group ("Symphony") was founded in 2002Dorbian, Iris (July 1, 2024) STG Rising: Hailing the Newcomer on the 100. ...

acquired Shopzilla, including all operating websites and Bizrate Insights. In September 2014, Shopzilla.com rebranded to Connexity, Inc.; Bizrate Insights continued to operate under the Connexity umbrella. In June 2015, Connexity acquired

PriceGrabber PriceGrabber.com is a price-comparison shopping site and distributed content commerce service founded in 1999 by former CEOs Kamran Pourzanjani and Tamim Mourad. The company partners with merchants, retailers, and sellers to provide information o ...

. Customer feedback collected under PriceGrabber was then collected by Bizrate Insights. In September 2016, The Bizrate Insights division of Connexity is acquired by Synapse Group Inc., a division of ''Time Inc''. In 2010, Bizrate Insights formed a partnership with

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

to begin distributing retailer ratings and reviews from Bizrate Insights to Google Product Search and

Google AdWords Google Ads, formerly known as Google Adwords, is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, and videos to web users. It can place ads in the res ...

ads.

Products and services

According to company documentation, Bizrate Insights offers survey tools that collect feedback across various stages of the e-commerce customer journey. The company also offers tools designed to understand the behavior of users who leave sites before completing a purchase.

References

{{Reflist Market research companies of the United States 2016 mergers and acquisitions Companies established in 1996