Imagine being able to compare prices for airfares, hotels and retail products, with customer reviews, directly in your browser.  SmartShopper — a plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer (they’ll add Firefox next quarter) — does just that.

Our friends at CenterNetworks spoke with SmartShopper CEO Oren Dobronsky about this exciting new tool for consumers and e-commerce shops.

• The add-on is only .5 mb in size
• Automatically recognizes any product or travel offering
• Oren’s mission statement is to, “make the comparative shopping experience better and easier”
• There are no ads in the add-on
• Two million active users in the last month
• SmartShopper is one of only twelve applications that are trusted by TRUSTe
• The team is made up of 20 people in Israel and Oren in NYC – they are working to open a NYC office in Q4 2007
• Oren claims that it’s the next generation of comparative searching engines
• Funding comes from a few angel investors
• August 2007 is their first profitable month
• They are working on some major distribution deals – which will be announced soon.
• Merchants pay a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) to be listed
• [...] there is no advantage as to [the merchant who] pays more because sorting is by item price.

On face value, this seems like a great thing for lazy, cheap deal-seekers like yours truly.  But I wonder…

How might this change buying behavior?  In other words, if the price is right there, will self-described “frugal” shoppers be tempted buy more or more often?  Would you or someone you know use it?