GroceryChoice hosted in Amazon cloud

ASX-listed SMS Management and Technology will redevelop, maintain and support the site in a "multi-million dollar" deal announced this week.

The site aims to provide consumers with the ability to compare prices for groceries and other dry items across Australia's major supermarkets before they go shopping.

The website came under attack from the Opposition and consumer groups at the end of last year over its failure to provide the service for which it was designed.

Shadow Minister for competition policy and consumer affairs, Luke Hartsuyker, called on the Government to can the website, describing it as a basket case that should be shut down to save taxpayers' money.

The Australian Department of Treasury & Finance, however, handed responsibility for GroceryChoice off to the advocacy group, CHOICE in February.

It has since committed to rebuild the site and sub-contracted SMS to handle the technology aspects of the project.

"We will relaunch an enhanced GroceryChoice service with more timely, localised and relevant data from the second half of the year," a CHOICE spokesperson said.

The new site will be built on an off-the-shelf e-commerce product called ATG Commerce Server.

Hosted through Amazon's EC2 cloud service, the site will incorporate Google Maps for store location functionality, and other "Web 2.0 features" have also been promised.

According to CHOICE, these features will allow consumers to access as well as contribute material to the site.

SMS will commit a team of ten developers to the project that are "now embedded at CHOICE HQ in Sydney".