pluggd.in describes QuarkRank and QuarkShop. Here is my take on the startup.

UI: Finally…. I see an Indian site with good usability. A bit AJAX heavy, but UI is nicely done. The site (QuarkShop) is not just yet another collection of scripts tied around some data, but an actual product. The site has a lot of information on certain pages. This can be overwhelming initially, but one gets used to it after playing a bit with the site.

Branding: ‘Quark’ reminds me of Quark Express. I think ‘QuarkShop’ is a nerdy name. Is it intended to be? Not sure. Quark is about 6 elementary particles. Do they have 6 values that they use to get the QuarkRank?

SEO: They know what they are doing!

Content: Content for each product is pretty good for the limited (4) categories they have. They don’t have prices for old models. I guess no one is selling them.

API: They have an elaborate API. If I understand it correctly, QuarkShop is built using the API provided QuarkRank. It seems like they are syndicating everything they know about a product. A lot of good apps can be built using the API. They have suggested a few ideas. Their widgets are nice as well.

Revenue Model: Revenue model for QuarkShop seems to be affiliate earnings from Amazon, Shopping.com etc. However, the links to the price comparison sites are not working at this time. I don’t know what are their plans to monetize the actual API. Perhaps pay as you use?

Product Suggestions:

    AJAX is good, but I think it will be good to have URLs for Reviews, Specifications and Price Comparison something like http://www.quarkshop.com/camera/toshiba-pdr-m81#reviews
    They have a nice feature of comparing 2 products. I tried iPod Touch 8GB and 16GB. I wasn’t expecting the results to vary this much (Though it is good to see the links for comparison).

From my past experience with the product data aggregation, I think it is easier to get and aggregate consumer electronics data. They are focused on only 4 categories at this time, which is good, but it will be interesting to see how they perform as they expand their taxonomy.

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