Get a Good Gadget Deal with Retrevo

A while back I had a chance to talk with Vipin Jain, CEO of Retrevo. Retrevo is a vertical search engine for consumer electronics that I first saw back at DEMOfall ’06. I loved the idea, particularly because of the search engine’s ability to bring up product manuals for CE devices I bought in the 1990s. However, I wasn’t convinced that it could be terribly successful, given how well Google has cornered the search market.

In talking with Jain, however, I found out about a new category that Retrevo has tagged on to its search results in addition to the already-present “manufacturer info,” “reviews & articles,” and “forums and blogs.” The new category is “daily deals” and I found it quite handy a couple of weeks ago when buying a GPS system for my husband’s birthday gift. (His birthday is now past, so no secrets being revealed here.)

I’d done my research on which product to buy (the TomTom ONE) and I started searching for the best price. At first I thought I’d go with Amazon because I still had my Amazon Prime trial membership running and I could get free 2-day shipping. But then thankfully I remembered to check out Retrevo. A Retrevo daily deal saved me more than $70 on the total price. And there were no rebates to deal with, only a simple coupon code.

I still think Retrevo has a tough road ahead of it, but I highly recommend checking it out if you’re going gadget shopping. And who knows? Maybe the company will partner up with CNET or some other CE site and find success that way. Sounds like a good business plan to me…