So where are the cheap books?
For more than a year, visitors to the Junglee Web site used its sophisticated technology to scour the Internet for the lowest prices on everything from Tom Clancy novels to Schwinn bicycles. In short order, Junglee became a leading developer of comparison-shopping technology, the very kind that sometimes referred online shoppers to rivals of Amazon.com Inc.So when Amazon shelled out $180 million to take over Junglee in August, some critics worried that the electronic bargain-hunting service might censor any ads, promotions or lower-priced offerings from rival retailers of books and music. Those product lines are the heart of Amazon.com and two of the most frequently purchased items on the Web.
Amazon dismissed such concerns in interviews last summer, saying it would provide as much consumer information as possible. The company said it was even trying to sign up its biggest competitor, Barnes & Noble Inc.
In the intervening months, though, Amazon quietly gave the Junglee site a marketing makeover. The site used to promote four different shopping guides it powered, including a shopping guide run by Compaq Computer Corp. and Lycos Inc.'s HotBot. Clicking on one of them led a viewer to a virtual discount mall.
Today, visitors typing in the Junglee Web site are immediately switched to something called Amazon's "Shop the Web." The site is advertised on-screen as "the place to find anything you want to buy online."
Anything, that is, except books and music.
Amazon confirms the change but says consumers just aren't as interested in comparison-shopping for lower-end items such as novels and CDs. "Even if someone found a book was 25 cents or 50 cents cheaper at another site," says Bill Curry, an Amazon spokesman, "they'd still buy at Amazon.com because of the trust and recognition factors."
Some Internet shoppers disagree. "I'm very frugal, and the shopping bots can help you save a lot of money," says Ruth Yaron, a 42-year-old author in Scranton, Pa., who says she has bought more than 100 books on the Internet.
Shopping robots, or "bots," are capable of searching for goods on hundreds of Web sites in seconds. A little Web browsing on a recent day showed that PriceSCAN.com found John Grisham's "The Testament" for $23.51 at Barnes & Noble -- a penny cheaper than the price quoted for Amazon. But they both were sharply undercut by Compaq's shopping.com, an online retailer, which listed it for $17.47.
But online prices can be competitive. Search for the bestseller "Charming Billy" on the mySimon bot, a Junglee rival, and Amazon and Barnes & Noble are dead even on pricing: $10.36 for the paperback, $15.40 for the hardcover.
Some say it is no surprise Amazon isn't promoting Junglee's ability to find lower prices for books and music. "If there's something owned by a for-profit commercial entity, it gets very dicey," says Glover Ferguson, co-director of e-commerce for Andersen Consulting in Chicago. "Whoever pays gets to call the tune."
Meantime, Amazon is using Junglee -- and its promise of access to an array of online products -- to broaden its image as a marketer of more than books, the founding business for which it is well-known.
"It has strategic value for Amazon because they were interested in finding a way for consumers to shop in categories they weren't in yet," says James McQuivey, senior analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. "But for the consumer, it doesn't do them any good if there's some corporate entity telling you which retailers you can search."
Eventually, shoppers looking for deals on books or music may simply ditch Amazon's "Shop the Web" for other online bargain-hunting services. "It's wonderful for us," says Josh Goldman, president and chief executive of mySimon. "Merchants trust us instead of Junglee because we're not competing with them."
Despite Amazon's changes to the Junglee Web page, it still is possible to log directly on to the HotBot or Compaq shopping guides that Junglee technology continues to power. Those guides still allow visitors to search a variety of retailers for the best prices on books.
But you can't arrive at them via the Junglee address anymore, now that the Amazon name has been prominently added to the front door.