My Website - BargainTracker.net

AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 10/07/2015 - 22:30
Last edited 11/07/2015 - 00:09 by 1 other user

Hi all,

ozbargain inspired me to create this, to give back to others and find bargains (or typos lol) before most people do. I have been working on this website for about a week now and i'm quite happy with how it's turning out. I only have 5 shops tracked right now, but that only took me a couple of hours to actually do (spent a lot of time on the framework, database stuff & website) making it modular and putting other systems in place so i can just write a scraper and it will show up.

Tomorrow i will be adding another 5 - 10 stores if i get enough time, and more and more after that.

Right now it just shows percentages off, we all know this isnt accurate as stores like to jack up prices stupidly before they reduce them. but over time i will be working on a nice formula that takes the last 30 days of the items price history into account (and not just yesterdays), as well as popularity (people clicking on the links etc)

let me know what you think. http://bargaintracker.net

General Discussion

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Comments

  • gimli on 10/07/2015 - 22:37

    Looks promising, especially if you plan to add more stores. Will keep an eye out on it.

  • Sergeant Salami on 10/07/2015 - 23:42
    +3

    Some feedback: maybe add a price history, lowest price ever

    Have a look at http://camelcamelcamel.com/ for some more ideas :)

  • outlander on 11/07/2015 - 10:52

    pretty cool. well done

  • happychild100 on 11/07/2015 - 14:35

    Looks promising!

  • try2bhelpful on 11/07/2015 - 17:30

    Does look promising. The extras I would like are a filter on categories, the store indicated up front and if store does free shipping. This sort of stuff is really fun to play with, keep it up.

  • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 11/07/2015 - 17:40

    great ideas guys, most of them will be implemented at some stage!

    I have just added Super Cheap Auto, PCCaseGear, Dick Smith and Crazysales to my list. they will show up from tomorrow onward. Currently the website updates once a day (just after 11:30am melb/syd time, but eventually ill make update a few times per day)

    • Lurker on 16/07/2015 - 16:49
      +2

      Well done.

      A couple of suggestions:

      Typo:
      Change
      "Bare with us"
      to
      "Bear with us"
      on your homepage.

      Keep all results one one page so that we don't have to click through the pages.
      This makes quick searching by keyword on the webpage possible also.

      Can do approximate keyword search, e.g.
      fish can find fishing
      boat can find canoe, kayak
      swimming can find diving
      outdoors can find swimming , running , diving, climbing

      I would like lots of sorting features.
      e.g.
      Can sort results according to:

      highest drop in price % , e.g. Dick Smith seems to have a lot of price drops today. Can I get a sorting feature to sort out Dick Smith's price drops, by highest to lowest % change?
      And sort by higest to lowest $$ saved ?
      And sort by current price?
      This is the kind of info I won't be able to get on Dick Smith website.
      So that should make your website more useful, I think.

      • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 16/07/2015 - 16:57

        Thanks for the feedback, ill change that typo now!

        as for the approximate keyword search, i believe you can type fish and find fishing? 'sil' can find 'SIMPLISM iPad2 Silicone Set BK' for example.

        and you can sort the columns by clicking on the text at the top of the table 'Current Price' etc. ill make that more intuitive though!

        • Lurker on 16/07/2015 - 16:58

          I have just added one extra comment .

          Just in case you haven't seen it:

          Here it is:

          Keep all results one one page so that we don't have to click through the pages.
          This makes quick searching by keyword on the webpage possible also.

        • Lurker on 16/07/2015 - 17:02

          If you want more websites to scrape, let me know.

          I have already post a pretty long list in one of your earlier threads.

        • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 16/07/2015 - 17:27

          @Lurker: sounds like a good idea. I have just updated the site with changes.

          Column lengths are much nicer
          Icons added for sorting of columns
          Fixed that bear typo
          Extended the table list size by default (should all be on page 1 now)

        • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 16/07/2015 - 17:28

          @Lurker: thanks, im holding off a little bit before i make more scrapers, really want to get a few other website features set up first. like avg price formula, price history of items etc. and the bar showing next run time.

        • Lurker on 23/07/2015 - 21:46

          @xEnt:

          Now that you are updating the list several times a day.

          It would be good to know which item has just been added to the list since the last update.

          If possible, can you please add such feature so that we can sort the latest addition to the list throughout the day?

          Thanks a million.

        • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 24/07/2015 - 08:31

          @Lurker: that makes sense, maybe ill add a little 'new' icon next to the lot that gets updated in the second run.

          currently it runs at 10:30am AEST and 4:30pm AEST

        • Lurker on 19/08/2015 - 09:22

          @xEnt:

          Looks like your website hasn't been updated for a few days.

          Will we have access to use it in the future?

        • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 19/08/2015 - 13:25

          @Lurker:

          In the middle of a rewrite to add more features and stuff at the moment. ill fix it up tonight just to get it running again until im done with the updates!

  • happychild100 on 16/07/2015 - 16:59

    Something I've noticed is your prices are being rounded down to the nearest dollar, seems a bit odd? Though not sure how you are pulling the data. E.g.
    http://www.dicksmith.com.au/mobile-phone-accessories/fujitsu… showing as $0 on your site.

    http://www.dicksmith.com.au/tv-video-cables/ds-2xrca-plugs-t… showing as $3 on your site.

    • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 16/07/2015 - 17:11

      yep it gets rounded to the nearest dollar. ill fix that though thanks. also dick smith is a pain in the ass with it's daily fluctuating prices, going to need to implement an average price instead of yesterdays price, to counteract that soon.

  • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 17/07/2015 - 13:07

    I have changed the formula from using yesterdays price to average price, this is a big part of showing accurate bargains and circumventing shops marking prices up then heavily reducing them, but obviously this will show a lot less bargains (for example yesterday had 300+ bargains, today 20.

    I have also added Officeworks and am working on another page to display pricing history of products (you'll be able to click a hyperlink around the Avg price text to see an items history)

  • dealman on 17/07/2015 - 17:23

    Great Idea man,

    If you are looking for which shops to add to the scraper, here's a list of shops that have done very well at OZBARGAIN, Which could also mean they have learnt to game the professionals(Dicksmith) etc. There's yearly records of these so check out the lists here

    http://blog.ozbargain.com.au/category/stats/

    2014 http://blog.ozbargain.com.au/2015/ozbargain-zeitgeist-2014-t…

    2013 http://blog.ozbargain.com.au/2014/ozbargain-zeitgeist-2013-t…

    You can get some ideas there on which shops to scrape.

    Posted by store these are the top stores that made it to front page with as many deals.

    Dick Smith 362
    Amazon.com 266
    Kindle Books 260
    Woolworths 229
    iTunes/iOS app deals 205
    Coles 163
    Udemy 127
    Target 100
    JB Hi-Fi 100
    Harvey Norman 92
    The Good Guys 87
    Big W 86
    Catch of the Day 85
    Dominos 74
    Google Play Store 73
    Dan Murphy’s 73
    Shopping Express 68
    Myer 63
    Officeworks 60
    Steam 56
    Amazon.com.au 54
    MSY 52
    eBay 44
    Masters 38
    Kmart 37

  • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 19/07/2015 - 23:28

    thanks for that list dealman, ill be sure to add some of those in future.

    I have updated the website, it now displays average price instead of yesterdays price. you can click on it and it will take you to a basic page showing the price history of the item (funny seeing Dick Smith items on the graph)

    I have finally rewrote the software responsible for working out the bargains, was taking between 2-5 hours, now 2 minutes and can update it multiple times per day.

    I have added a Bargain Score in which takes about 6 different variables into account to work out the bargain score, website auto lines up by highest score now. this will be continuously tweaked until i find a nice balance. but it certainly circumvents dick smith's constant price increases and surges.

    There are a few more small features i'd like to add before i start working on tracking more websites!

  • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 21/07/2015 - 21:48

    I have further tweaked the bargain formula (its not easy tweaking the formula to find a good balance of real bargains without all the dick smith junk).
    Also added Target after seeing those free shipping posts. I might look at targeting a few online shops that have free shipping on every item and having a special page for < $5 bargains using a slightly looser formula. places like mertiline etc, always nice to have more of those 0.50c toothpaste squeezers, or bottle openers etc!

  • SpaceNinja on 21/07/2015 - 22:45

    Well done, make sure you cover your backside by putting some content regarding terms and conditions and privacy policy.

  • MrMaxwell on 25/07/2015 - 01:26

    JB will be a good one!

  • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 31/07/2015 - 23:08

    I have just added Kmart which will show up tomorrow.

    I have been quite busy in real life lately so have not made many updates. got a bunch of optimizations and features i need to do soon. One the wife is bugging me for is a page for specific shops where you can view the price drops for only that shop. and new items added!

  • kusama on 19/08/2015 - 13:37

    Edit -

  • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 31/08/2015 - 11:14

    I have added the ability to select items and export them in OzBargain format (saves a lot of time when posting a bargain)

    also changed some colours, added a tracker update countdown/status bar. very soon ability to filter out certain shops.

    its progressing slowly but surely!

    • happychild100 on 31/08/2015 - 17:15

      Oh that will be cool and handy. Saw the filter options this morning, sweet.

  • happychild100 on 29/09/2015 - 10:41

    Seems to be down? Or is it just me.

    • AssociatedUnrvl @ Bargain Tracker on 29/09/2015 - 11:20

      It's down, permanently. i don't have the time or money to continue funding it. even though its only $30 a month, i never wanted to run it with ads and felt there wasn't enough interest in keeping it up anyway. Sorry.

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