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MSNs revamped shopping portal is inching closer to its final release.
MSN fully rolled out the second public beta refresh of its new shopping site on Monday, after quietly leaking news of the pending release Friday evening.
With 60 times the number of stores, and five times the number of items offered, the new release is expected to be a substantial update to the current MSN Shopping site.
Chris Jolley, program manager of MSN Shopping, told Comparison Engines on Friday that the site “is our recognition that this is how consumers want to shop.”
Jolley listed on the MSN Shopping Blog several of the changes testers will see in Beta 2 that will be part of the final updated site:
- RSS feeds
- Ratings and reviews
- Refined search functions with expanded criteria ranked by price, rating, popularity, name, best match
- Multiple result viewing options
- Usability enhancements, including recently viewed items, comparison shopping tools, and a clean and simple user interface
- Comprehensive set of merchandising, including a gift center, and seasonal shops and guides
Initial reviews of the new portal have been positive, with testers complimenting the addition of RSS feeds for all of the sites searches, as well as the “clean and quite simple user interface.”
Others said they felt that this new edition to the MSN Search family would be a direct competitor to Shopping.com, Froogle, and Yahoo Shopping.