I spent the past year creating Price Hipster, a product search engine and price watching website for the OzBargain community!

Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/11/2015 - 11:45
Last edited 13/11/2015 - 12:45

Update 13/11/15: Thanks everyone for the support and feedback! I realise there are heaps of comments here and no one wants to read through them all. If you have a suggestion, it has probably already been raised. I'm currently working on a big update and I'll be sure to let you all know when I release it. I'll be keen to get further feedback and suggestions then. :-)

Hi fellow OzBargainers!

I've spent the past year creating a powerful tool for you all.

https://www.pricehipster.com.au/

These are the reasons I created Price Hipster:

  1. Searching for products across multiple stores is painful. Sometimes you don't even know which stores to check for a product. Wouldn't it be great to conveniently search all stores from one place?

  2. Even if you want to find a product in one particular store, most store websites are very bad at searching their own products, and they're slow at it.

  3. There is no convenient way to find out the previous prices of products, making it difficult to hold vendors accountable for false claims of discounts. Some products vary wildly in price. Some change price nearly every day. For example:

https://www.pricehipster.com.au/product?id=NJNmxsZ3k5n

I really appreciate those OzBargainers who have taken the time to use internet archives to dig up previous prices, but it's less than ideal, and hopefully will now be a thing of the past!

Price Hipster currently includes 5 websites in its index. That will expand in the near future.

Questions for you all:

  1. Which stores should be added next?

  2. OzBargainers in Western Australia, how is the search latency for you? The search servers are in Sydney. I live in Brisbane and the search is pretty much instantaneous here.

If you find any issues with the website or have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

General Discussion

Related Stores

Price Hipster
Price Hipster

Comments

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/04/2016 - 12:24

            @Olokun: Yeah, that'll be done before the 100 stores are added. That's my next big project.

    • [Deactivated] on 17/04/2016 - 21:43

      the site is definitely growing
      well done

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 17/04/2016 - 21:44

        Thanks, 2Krazy!

    • treeman on 19/04/2016 - 10:24

      I'm enjoying the new stores but feel the front page is getting clogged up by ASOS atm.

      • Olokun on 19/04/2016 - 10:58
        +1

        Definitely.. Might want to set a limit to the number of items on the front page per store at any one time perhaps?

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 12:17

          Agreed. Done. :-)

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/04/2016 - 12:20

        I agree. I need to do an overhaul of all these kinds of things. I knew these problems would appear as new stores were added.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 12:16

        I've fixed the clogging of the front page for now. I'm still working on an overhaul of search/navigation.

    • peterpeterpumpkin on 01/05/2016 - 10:25

      Thanks for the site. It's nice to know when a special is actually special. I look forward to all the filters!

      Out of interest, if you don't mind, how much are we putting you out of pocket each month? I noted in your server deal that you've had to purchase quite a few?

      • treeman on 01/05/2016 - 11:53

        Wouldn't he get a small commission from anybody who clicks one of his links and then purchases something?

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 12:15
          +1

          For the new stores I'm adding at the moment, this is correct. I'm still out of pocket each month, though, until traffic picks up more.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 12:14

        All the stuff I need to buy to keep it all running as smoothly as it does costs a few hundred per month. That isn't even significant when compared to how many hours of work I have put in to make it all. I have actually started looking into affiliate links which gives me a small income whenever you purchase something through the link Price Hipster gives to the product page. That will probably be able to cover my costs over time.

        • peterpeterpumpkin on 01/05/2016 - 13:29

          Great.

          For some reason some affiliate marketers are blocked (well interrupted for user confirmation you could say) by ublock's default lists while other are not (e.g. Rakuten). For example, Commission Factory's cfjump.com domain is caught, which is being used for the Pushy's referrals.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 13:31

            @peterpeterpumpkin: Yes, I know. I can't control what ad blockers do. Ad blockers are heavy-handed and don't know the difference between an ad and a legitimate link.

          • treeman on 01/05/2016 - 22:21

            @peterpeterpumpkin: @jazoom:
            Good to know, I'll try to pause my ad blocker for your site if ever I purchase something.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 22:27

            @peterpeterpumpkin: @treeman: That'd be awesome. You may be able to create exceptions so you don't have to worry about pausing and unpausing. I know for uBlock Origin it asks if you want to permanently allow the link when you click on it.

    • Ughhh on 01/05/2016 - 12:37

      Is it me or is there no link to get to the deal when clicking the image/text?

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 13:16

        Maybe just you, but I'd like to know why you can't see it. Could you send a screenshot?

        There should be a logo of the store towards the bottom left of the details view, just under the price history graph.

        • Ughhh on 01/05/2016 - 13:36

          Ah I can see it now. Was only clicking on the image and the title. All good.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/05/2016 - 13:37

            @Ughhh: Thanks for the feedback. I know I need to make it more obvious where to click for stuff.

    • Herbse on 02/05/2016 - 19:28
      +2

      Love the new stores. Looking forward to more.

      My only complaint is that my partner questions me about scrolling through pictures of the asos models.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 02/05/2016 - 19:30

        Haha. You'll be glad then that I'm holding off on some lingerie stores for now.

        • Herbse on 02/05/2016 - 23:49

          There goes my marriage

    • TRENT86 on 02/05/2016 - 20:43

      price hipster is great for checking old prices, much better than google cache

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 02/05/2016 - 20:56

        I'm glad to hear it :-)

    • Olokun on 09/05/2016 - 08:17

      I find the price history for the shaver shop quite interesting as according to PH not 1 price has changed since the start of April even though the store is an vivid fan of large flyers all over their products advocating how much you are saving on a product (usually off RRP price) even though it seems just to be their everyday price.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/05/2016 - 08:26

        Yes, they like to advertise the RRP.

    • fruit on 09/05/2016 - 11:28

      What technology is powering your site?

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/05/2016 - 11:29

        I've custom built it

    • Mike_Mav on 09/05/2016 - 17:55

      Amazing website can't believe you haven't monetized yet with advertising or affiliate purchases to help pay for your development time and hosting costs. Any plans for adding Kogan and Dick Smith ? Kogan is notoriously shady with pricing, even the price between those two sites are different!

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/05/2016 - 18:40

        Dick Smith was one of the original stores, but I removed it after the website shut down. It might come back later. At the moment I'm adding stores that want to be added, and there are heaps more waiting in line.

        I have started trialing affiliate links to cover server costs. I'm still in the red but maybe later it will cover costs.

    • YLC on 12/05/2016 - 23:38

      Would like to suggest to add catch of the day and baby sites like toys r us and baby bunting.

      Great work jazoom, I have been using price hipster on a regular basis 😊

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 13/05/2016 - 06:04
        +1

        Thanks YLC!

        It just so happens that the first baby store is being released as I write this. 😀

    • lyl on 12/06/2016 - 11:26

      Hey jazoom,

      Can you try to get the 'price drops in last 24 hours' up ASAP? I really want to see price drops of specific stores, but most of the discounts were from a while ago. The front page (where it shows recent price drops) is still comprised mostly of fashion items, which I'm not really interested in. I haven't been able to find as many deals of PH recently.

      Also, will you be adding more electronic/computing stores? It's the most popular category for ozbargainers, so I'm sure you'll get lots of traffic if you index them.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/06/2016 - 11:33
        +1

        Hi lyl,

        At the moment I'm working very hard on making some big changes under the hood that will allow many improvements, including what you're talking about. I can't give a timeline, though. :(

        • lyl on 12/06/2016 - 11:39

          Ok no worries, keep up the good work :)

    • So Was Red on 19/06/2016 - 10:25

      If we sign up and login can we semi-perma customize the stores displayed on home page? I'm finding the OZGameshop deals are not worth looking at and would also like to filter out results with certain words.. gender specific stuff etc

      • So Was Red on 19/06/2016 - 10:29

        Just set Adblock to not run on your domain as thanks :))) Even though it wasn't blocking anything… yet.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/06/2016 - 18:18

          Cool, thanks!. I don't think AdBlock will ever do anything on PriceHipster except make it more difficult for you to click through to stores. You should have no degraded performance and a better experience.

          As for your question, I am currently in the process of making some changes to the way all that works. We'll see what you think when the changes go live. :-)

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 25/07/2016 - 21:17

        Oooo… I'm getting so close to implementing that suggestion you made, I can almost taste it!

        • So Was Red on 27/07/2016 - 19:23

          Eyyy, currently happy with having a reeeeally long URL bookmarked if you know what I mean :>

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 27/07/2016 - 20:02

            @So Was Red: That'll still be useful for complex searches. What I'm cooking is mainly to do with stores.

    • letsplayludo on 25/07/2016 - 21:03

      Hey jazoom - great website mate.

      I have a question - or rather two:

      1. Does your website limit how many products are shown? For example, I tried it with Coles and Target separately, and they came back with a list but then the list stopped scrolling after say 80 or so products. For Coles, it showed 96 products, but I am sure the price dropped on a lot more products at Coles over the last week due to specials etc. How do I see ALL drops for Coles for example? Even for target, all the products shown were of the products that costed a maximum $25, so I am a bit confused if it is correct.

      2. Related to above, what is the default setting for price drops? Do you only show prices dropped in the last 24 hours, last week or something else?

      Thanks mate - keep up the good work.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 25/07/2016 - 21:23

        Hi letsplayludo!

        1. On a mobile device 96 products are loaded. This is because pretty much all mobile devices choke on anything more. You can scroll to 240 on a desktop. This isn't usually a problem because no one really scrolls that far. It's best to use search filters to get what you want.

        2. For search results, it accepts anything. The initial products that are shown are limited to recent price drops. I think it's 3 days. You can also specify by using the filter.

    • stuckster on 01/08/2016 - 22:07
      +1

      Store groups are great. Nice implementation. Well done.

      Next I think the site would really benefit from some product filters
      Biggest one is probably Fashion eg: Mens, Ladies, Boys, Girls

      Do products have tags you could use to achieve this?
      Perhaps users could help by selecting tags for various products as they browse.?

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/08/2016 - 22:13

        Thanks for the feedback, stuckster!

        Actually, your suggestion is what I originally wanted to do, and I spent some time working on it. Unfortunately, it's a very tricky problem and I couldn't come up with a good enough solution. I will probably revisit it in the future.

        • stuckster on 01/08/2016 - 23:59
          +1

          Is it still possible to browse individual stores without creating a new group with just one store? I used to find it very handy when someone was having a clearence or sale to browse only the items from that particular store.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 02/08/2016 - 05:52

            @stuckster: No, but it takes less than half a second to remove a group, so the experience shouldn't be much different.

            I'm keen to hear if you have an idea for how to make it work.

          • franco cozzo on 03/08/2016 - 09:34

            @stuckster: …im with you.

            the recent change provides less functionality especially for browsing individual stores….

            you shouldnt have to nav to a sub page, find & select the store save it and name it as a group just to return to the main page for a search…what was once a simple mouse driven search function now takes multiple steps & necessitates using a keyboard…

            leave the group page as an added function but reintroduce the store selector from the main page is what i reckon would work nicely as an end user….

            having said all that great work jazoom…its a very nice search site youve created ;)

          • stuckster on 03/08/2016 - 09:50
            +1

            @stuckster: @franco cozzo:
            I think a store filter might still be helpful in addition to the new group feature.
            Obviously the more stores you add the longer the list gets. But the original implementation (where you just type the first two letters of the store name and it appears in a shortlist) worked very nicely.

          • franco cozzo on 03/08/2016 - 09:53

            @stuckster: @stuckster: i'm all for that…if you can search by group or store then its a win win

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/08/2016 - 12:02

            @stuckster: @franco cozzo: Thanks for your input. It's a balance between making it simple and catering to all the needs of power users.

            What do you think of having one of the group options as 'quick select' and then allowing the user to select only 1 store?

            Another option is ticking a box in the store selector page that says you want the group to be temporary, thus not having to enter a name.

    • hitubaba on 16/12/2016 - 13:44

      Just want to say, you are a legend jazoom. Thanks for all your effort. Let us know, however we can help.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/12/2016 - 13:49

        Thanks mate! The next phase is to greatly increase the number of users and number of stores concurrently. The best way to help is to spread the word. 😁

    • Neoika on 26/12/2016 - 14:13

      I recommend House/Robins Kitchen and Harris Farm to be added to the list.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/12/2016 - 14:35

        House was in the list but their product feed was broken for a while. It looks like it's back so I'll add them again soon.

    • stuckster on 03/02/2017 - 16:03

      Hey @jazoom

      Have you had any luck approaching the Super Retail Group for their data feeds?

      • BCF
      • Rebel Sport
      • Amart Sports
      • Rays Outdoors
      • Supercheap Auto
      • Goldcross Cycles

      Would be great to get these stores on board.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/02/2017 - 19:37

        That sounds like a great idea. Currently I'm working on infrastructure updates then I'll get on to making it easier for stores to provide feeds. At the moment there are specific ways that don't work for all stores. Then we can reach out to these stores.

        • [Deactivated] on 04/02/2017 - 23:13

          Hit me up if you need emails of higher ups. I'm sure I can sort you out.

    • hitubaba on 20/02/2017 - 10:18

      Mobileciti, msy,mwave, wireless1 would be great…they all have physical stores too

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 20/02/2017 - 16:49

        Yeah, we do need to get some more electronics stores. Thanks for the feedback!

    • burhanr on 21/02/2017 - 11:10

      Hey jazoom, thank you very much for your work.
      Makes it so much easier to buy only those on specials, I've probably saved somewhere in the hundreds now, because of this.

      Although, if you don't mind me asking:
      It doesn't seem like you're using Algolia anymore?
      But the search is still crazy fast and typo/mistake correction is still there, may I know your current technology stack?
      I noticed that with your current implementation, Algolia would've charged each keystroke as one operation, would've been insanely expensive right?

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 21/02/2017 - 15:22

        Yes, Algolia would have gotten insanely expensive. I had to create my own search platform to implement the features I wanted to and operate at the scale pricehipster.com needs to operate on.

        The search is based around Elasticsearch, which is obviously a lot more involved than using Algolia and takes a lot more tuning to get right, but I think it's a pretty good technology and it has worked well for Price Hipster.

        • burhanr on 21/02/2017 - 17:14

          That's awesome. Thank you for your reply, it gives me an idea on what Elasticsearch can be used given that I can code them properly.

          Again, thank you for your work with pricehipster :)

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 21/02/2017 - 17:23

            @burhanr: People use Elasticsearch for all kinds of things. It's quite versatile. You just have to set it up to do what you want.

            You're welcome. Best of luck!

    • happychild100 on 28/03/2017 - 01:03

      Not sure if just me but something up with PH past couple days.

      Can't filter to specific stores, Only sorting by "best match" seems to work but the rest don't, categories rarely work (If they do though, you still can't use sorting anyway), changing the "days since" does nothing.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/03/2017 - 07:51

        Not just you. Thanks for pointing it out.

        I recently made a major update (the site loads a lot faster now) but it broke a few things.

        It should be fixed by the end of today. :-)

        • happychild100 on 28/03/2017 - 11:12

          Sorry if i sounded like i was complaining btw! Was just curious if my browser/pc was the one with issues or not haha.

          Good to hear! :)

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/03/2017 - 13:15

            @happychild100: It didn't sound like complaining to me. I'm glad you took the time to tell me about the issue. I know about this one due to automatic error reporting, but sometimes I might not know of an issue unless someone tells me.

            It's taking me longer to fix this because I didn't have my computer for a few days. I'm getting onto it now.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/03/2017 - 16:47

            @happychild100: I'm pretty sure I just fixed the problem. Let me know if there are further issues.

        • radnom on 28/03/2017 - 13:58

          I also noticed issues today. Awaiting the fixes :)
          Pricehipster is awesome. I hope you make a decent amount of money out of it.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/03/2017 - 15:07

            @radnom: Thanks for the support. I'll let you know when it's fixed.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/03/2017 - 16:47

            @radnom: I'm pretty sure I just fixed the problem. Let me know if there are further issues.

          • radnom on 28/03/2017 - 16:57

            @radnom: @jazoom:
            looks good so far :D

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/03/2017 - 17:02

            @radnom: @radnom: :)

    • doweyy on 31/01/2018 - 11:17

      Hey mate, thought this might be the most reasonable place to comment. If Price Hipster hasn't picked up a price drop, is it possible to report it? I just noticed this deal isn't showing up here. Cheers!

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 31/01/2018 - 11:24

        Hey, you can report it. If you are signed in you will get a menu to report a problem in the top right corner of the product details page.

        However, I do get quite a few reports like this but it's just that the price has changed since the last website crawl. I suggest giving it a few hours before reporting it.

        • doweyy on 31/01/2018 - 11:32

          Awesome thanks for the update, I don't notice it at all but if I find another one I'll report it cheers!

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 31/01/2018 - 11:38

            @doweyy: Thanks for the support

    • fowl on 13/06/2018 - 11:35

      Old thread I know, but it seems that price hipster doesn't actually show all the prices for the same product across differnt stores?

      Try searching "chobani" for example - duplicates everywhere. All I need is lowest/highest price now/ever/last month/year or even "this store currently has it cheapest".

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 13/06/2018 - 12:07

        Hi Fowl. Yup, that's the most requested feature. It's also the most difficult. I'm not aware of any service in the world that does that well, but it's in my sights. Will take more time, though.

  • Alex10 on 16/04/2016 - 13:11

    Great website! I was wondering regarding the email notification, if I'd like to be emailed when a product drops to $4.99, should I set the notification price to $4.99 or $5.00? The wording on the website is "…when price drops below this value". Does this mean if I set price at $4.99 it will not notify me because it's not 'below' my set value?

    Thanks

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/04/2016 - 15:31

      Good question. I think if you set it at $4.99 you'll get a notification. I'm not in a position to double check at the moment.

  • sky blu on 16/04/2016 - 13:16

    Is there a direct link to search box? E.g. Australia Post's tracking link: http://auspost.com.au/parcels-mail/track.html#/track?id=

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/04/2016 - 15:37

      You mean link to search results? I'll be implementing that soonish.

      • sky blu on 16/04/2016 - 16:39

        Yes a direct link to the input in the search box. E.g. http://auspost.com.au/parcels-mail/track.html#/track?id=TEST

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/04/2016 - 17:00
          +1

          That link doesn't do what you're talking about when I click it on my phone. But I think I know what you mean.

        • sky blu on 16/04/2016 - 17:38

          @jazoom: not sure about mobile experience but I create javascript embedded bookmark to the direct links (if available) so I can just enter the search input

  • Limitless on 16/04/2016 - 16:43

    Firstly great site! :) Would love to be able to select a store and then filter by most recent price drops. This feature would come in handy with so many new stores being added my front page is being filled with asos items at the moment.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/04/2016 - 17:01

      You can select a store and order in a few different ways. Just click the filter icon in the search bar.

      Better navigation will come soon.

      • Limitless on 16/04/2016 - 17:16

        Yes but there is no option to show new price drops only sort by price or discount.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/04/2016 - 17:26

          Not yet. It's on the roadmap.

        • Limitless on 16/04/2016 - 17:26

          @jazoom: Cool thanks :)

      • Limitless on 16/04/2016 - 17:21

        Or maybe allow more items to show up in the searches. Just offering suggestions so we can find more/the latest bargains.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/04/2016 - 17:26
          +1

          Thanks for the feedback. You can look forward to many improvements to product navigation over the coming months.

  • sky blu on 16/04/2016 - 17:31

    Also if you can add the ability to filter (fashion) products by Gender!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/04/2016 - 17:35

      Yes, that's pretty important. I'll have to sort out the navigation experience more generally before I do that. It's not an easy thing to do for some stores.

      • sky blu on 16/04/2016 - 17:37

        Yes just throwing ideas out there. Everyone on OZB seems to be quite eager to make use of your website!

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