How to deal with "super deals" that get dozens of votes but no stock anywhere?

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  ycon on 24/04/2013 - 18:58

  +1

  We need a system of colours showing likely availability of stock- like green for a highly stocked deal, orange for medium stock, and red for low stock.

  It would make deals easier I think, sort of like grading them. Then when browsing, when you see a red deal, you can go to it straight away.

  • 

    ItsMeAgro on 26/04/2013 - 13:30

    I like this idea.

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  Davo1111 on 24/04/2013 - 19:54

  +1

  We shouldn't have low stock items anyway, well the minimum quantity is currently 10. Maybe this sort of stuff should be in the forums?

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  retiredfeline on 24/04/2013 - 20:03

  This is more likely to happen with a handful of companies, like Officeworks, DSE, etc. So my suggestion is to have the backend detect this and ask the deal poster: If this is a special, have you actually bought one and/or checked other branches of the store? If the answer is no, put a warning flag on the deal.

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  PissLUR on 24/04/2013 - 20:10

  store specific deals is not a deal for most ozbargainers.
  it should be posted in a separate category and not listed in the deals page.

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  Moderatorneil on 24/04/2013 - 20:11

  The example you gave didn't have the quantity available listed. Are there 10, 100, 2? Are they available nationwide even though they were found in one store? Tough questions and sometimes impossible to know.

  A tag for limited quantity? How about an OP, mod or power user writing limited quantity in the description. Hit the report link and it will be done fairly quickly.

  I'm a big fan of having hyperlocal information whether it be a blog, news, or deals. In the pipeline, is the ability to tag the location of the deals. So if some random product is found in a store in QLD it would be tagged by postcode. Those who don't want to see NSW or want to only see a certain location area should be able to filter out what they see.

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    ItsMeAgro on 26/04/2013 - 13:27

    A tag for limited quantity? How about an OP, mod or power user writing limited quantity in the description.

    Thanks for reading this and replying, Neil.

    I think it should be something users can do themselves, perhaps only showing up when a certain number of users flag it (like 5 users? or one user for ever 30 votes? This is how the "Out Of Stock" flag works already, right?). The real power of this site is the "democratic" crowd-directed nature of it, the more we can help each other out, the better.

    I also think it must somehow show up right on the listing for the deal on the front page, as an icon, text, colour, something like that. If someone is going to read the whole description, they will probably read the comments anyway.

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  Moderatorneil on 26/04/2013 - 13:47

  This is how the "Out Of Stock" flag works already, right?

  Nope. Out of Stock is marked manually by moderators, power users, or the OP.

  Out of Stock vs. In Stock is fairly black and white. It's either there or not.

  Limited quantity is a bit of a gray area. I guess before anything happens, we need to define exactly what "limited quantity" is. Perhaps only applies to physical stores? Although you could consider some Catch of the Day deals as limited quantity?

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    ItsMeAgro on 26/04/2013 - 14:32

    we need to define exactly what "limited quantity" is

    I'm thinking along the lines of "Almost nobody who sees this deal will actually be able to buy it".

    But again, I think it's most effective if users themselves decide it, something like: if 5 users flag it as "limited availability", it changes colour and warning text appears saying "some users warn this item has extremely limited availability".

    Let the "wisdom of the crowd" decide what "limited availability" means, and see what happens.

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  ycon on 29/04/2013 - 21:11

  A bit of a different topic, but this brought me to question how much I trust OzBargain and the voting system.

  For example, this deal here (http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/101367#comment-1360738) scored 110+ votes and it was a saving of $7 from the original price of ~$28.

  I just don't get why… Any thoughts on this?

  • 

    scotty on 30/04/2013 - 12:48

    Voting — it's individual's preference. Obviously 110+ people liked that deal. Nothing wrong with the voting system — one person one vote. You can certainly trust OzBargain's voting system, but I guess your question might be towards trusting human rationality though, which I agree is often flawed :)

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  [Deactivated] on 02/05/2013 - 21:59

  Another deal here with 20+ votes but i think that item was the only one in stock that OP bought it and I was surprised no one asked for stock availability and OP said the item was a brand new but I have no idea why the batteries are in the remote control.
  http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/101852