GUS says that the website has growth opportunities

The privately-owned Pricegrabber, set up in 1999, allows users to check the cost of thousands of products ranging from anoraks to laptops.

Retailers pay a fee every time a customer is directed to their website via Pricegrabber.

Pricegrabber was used by 17 million unique visitors in November and forecasts sales of $60m in 2005.

Consumer-friendly

Based in California, Pricegrabber employs 140 people.

It's technology is used to power comparison shopping on a number of websites including About.com, Ask Jeeves, Bell South, Comcast and MSN.

The US firm is being bought by GUS's Experian business, which is best known for providing credit checking services to businesses.

Experian boss Don Robert said that Pricegrabber had higher profit margins than larger rivals Shopzilla.com and Shopping.com.

"We think they're the most consumer-friendly company out there and we've been courting them for quite some time," he said on Wednesday.

Analysts also reacted favourably to the announcement. "Experian has a good history of making acquisitions work," said Investec.

For its part, GUS is restructuring its operations and plans to spin off Experian and its Argos Retail Group.