Shopping.com began as Papricom (DealTime.com),[1] which was founded in Israel in 1998 by Dr. Nahum Sharfman and Amir Ashkenazi,[2] the original business model was to create a downloadable client that would monitor changes in prices of products the user seeks to buy over time, notifying the user when the product price reached a predetermined level (hence the site's original name, DealTime).

After recruiting a management team of high-ranking executives from other industries, DealTime underwent rapid expansion in 2000 including formation of a major alliance with media giant Bertelsmann, adding British, German, Spanish and Japanese versions of its original American-targeted website, and acquiring Digital Jones, a product advisory website.

Three rounds of layoffs done in 2001 and 2002 halved the workforce to some 150; the Japanese and German websites were scrapped in late 2001, as well as plans for an early IPO, and Digital Jones was shelved.

Also, a growing percentage of the merchants being advertised on DealTime's website were forced to start paying for this service or become de-listed; some lucrative product categories became paying-merchants-only.

[2] The company went finally public in October 2004, and was acquired by eBay in June 2005 for $21 per share in cash, or total consideration of approximately $634 million.