SAO PAULO, Brazil — Buscape Company, Brazil's largest e- commerce comparison website, is taking its online offering to brick and mortar stores as it seeks a piece of the larger retail market.

Buscape, which is owned by Africa’s biggest company Naspers Ltd., makes money from stores that pay to be listed on its website where consumers can compare prices for items. Now, Sao Paulo-based Buscape wants to help retailers reach shoppers in stores as they shop.

The plan would allow companies to send messages to shoppers via their mobile phones when in one store, to show them a comparable item in another store.

“We are creating a new business model,” Buscape Latin America Chief Executive Officer Rodrigo Borer said in an interview. “We have a unique position because we already have a relationship with the consumers. Our brand means they buy well.”

The strategy would allow the company to increase its exposure to the larger in-store retail market, Borer said in an interview July 29. Retail sales totaled 523 billion reais ($230 billion) last year, according to national statistics institute IBGE. Online sales, though growing 20 percent a year, represent just 4 percent of total retail sales, Borer said.

Naspers, based in Cape Town, reported its slowest full-year profit growth in six years in June. Koos Bekker, the billionaire who stepped down as chief executive officer of Naspers this year, said in February that his successor needs to make the company’s e-commerce business a priority to keep growing.

Buscape, which operates price comparison websites in countries including Ukraine for Naspers, has the technology ready to reach shoppers in stores, and is working to get retailers involved, Borer said.

“We need to have everything in place to be relevant,” Borer said, estimating it will take three years to dominate the market.

By Christiana Sciaudone, David Biller; editors: Ed Dufner, Molly Schuetz, John Lear.