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 16/10/2020 - 06:52
      +1

      Their website was down for days, including yesterday when I checked. Seems they're back but I need to update the crawler.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 18/10/2020 - 16:06
      +1

      It's back now

      • tryagain on 18/10/2020 - 17:32
        +1

        Thanks, and thanks for the site, have you found a way to monetize it yet? I can't see any ads to click on.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/10/2020 - 08:09
          +3

          I'm very conscious of not polluting Price Hipster with ads. It was always intended to be a simple, clean solution. Any monetisation must not detract from this. Currently there is some monetisation through affiliate links, which doesn't really change the user experience but does pay Price Hipster's server costs.

          • GreenGuava on 19/10/2020 - 22:33

            @jazoom: What are your thoughts on the Prino app, which is currently being made availably for free?

            I have not tried it myself, but from the screenshots, it looks to be a Price Hipster-inspired price tracking app - the price graphs look quite similar to those from Price Hipster.

            Having been a Price Hipster user for some time, I'm personally a bit disappointed to see someone else 'capitalising' on what you've undoubtedly put a lot of time and energy into for a long time.

            • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 20/10/2020 - 08:03
              +3

              @GreenGuava: I'm not bothered. I've lost count of how many competitors to Price Hipster have come and gone over the years. I don't think people realise how much work it is for so little reward. If they do end up sticking around then it can only be a good thing for all of us to have more choice.

          • fredblogs on 12/10/2021 - 13:09

            @jazoom: I'm all for more ads if it means the site will stay up longer.

  • Nick7 on 25/10/2020 - 13:33

    Is there any reason that some items are not displayed when doing a search in price hipster from Bunnings?

    A few I have noticed:
    https://www.bunnings.com.au/karcher-k3-premium-full-control-…
    https://www.bunnings.com.au/ryobi-2400w-crushing-shredder_p0…

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/10/2020 - 09:04

      The second one appears to be there: https://pricehipster.com/product/vYV_Hl62-P4WHHso701Ehg~HJ1K…

      It's possible the crawler just didn't see it for a couple of days and thought it was gone.

      As for the shredder, it looks like Bunnings doesn't even have it in a product category other than "our range". Contrast that with the breadcrumbs for the pressure washer. I'm not surprised the crawler doesn't find it. I'm not even sure how I would go about finding it on their website unless I searched for it by name. Unless Bunnings organises it somewhere, it'll stay hidden.

  • Olokun on 28/10/2020 - 12:06

    Coles.. welcome back!

    Any chance of getting spotlight and/or Kmart back?

    Also curious what, if any, is the roadblock on having stores like MSY, CPL, baby bunting? (Which are stores listed on Prino)

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 29/10/2020 - 08:32

      Spotlight pulled their product feed. They might listen to their customers asking them to get back on Price Hipster.

      Kmart didn't have most of their products online, but I've been told that's improved so I'll eventually get around to checking again.

      The other stores you mention, along with many others, have been on Price Hipster before. Many stores don't hang around for long and many are terrible at maintaining an up-to-date product feed. Just because they're listed on Prino now doesn't mean they will be in a few months and doesn't mean the prices will be correct. It's like playing whack-a-mole.

  • FreddyDD on 06/12/2020 - 16:20

    It's an incredibly useful website! Keep up the great work!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 07/12/2020 - 09:21

      Thanks FreddyDD :)

  • fredblogs on 20/01/2021 - 16:43
    +2

    Bit of a price discrepancy here :) https://pricehipster.com/product/f_fetirbOcoQcLWiRYZd3A~0FdJ…

    • jv on 20/01/2021 - 16:46

      Thanks !!!

      Ordered 50…

      Hope they honour it…

    • jv on 20/01/2021 - 16:47

      Price didn't last long…

      It's now gone back up just after I submitted my order.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 20/01/2021 - 18:26

      Bing Lee's feed they provide Price Hipster with is usually good. I guess this was a mistake they made and fixed, and either their feed hasn't yet updated or it has updated but the Price Hipster crawler hasn't yet pulled the updated feed.

      If you're logged in on Price Hipster you can report an issue with the product directly.

  • walahbro on 15/02/2021 - 12:48
    +1

    Hi Just wondering if you could add a field to exclude words from search, there really only one word i'd like to hide………. "Baccarat"

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/02/2021 - 13:18
      +2

      Just search something like this: frying pan -baccarat

      • walahbro on 15/02/2021 - 14:34

        legend, cheers mate!

    • fredblogs on 15/02/2021 - 14:14

      what's wrong with Baccarat?

  • ewand7 on 01/03/2021 - 21:06
    Merged from Is Kogan No Longer on Price Hipster?

    I went to check on a product i was interested on Kogan, to check what the actual price was rather then whatever kogan inflated it to, and noticed that their products have disappeared from Price Hipster without a trace. Any Idea Why?

    • Hybroid on 01/03/2021 - 21:07
      +3

      Good. Don't support Kogan or their awful practises (grey market imports, price jacking during pandemics, misleading advertising, rubbish to non-existent customer support etc).

      • dmbminaret on 01/03/2021 - 21:14
        -1

        You will be missed.

        • Hybroid on 01/03/2021 - 21:25

          No need. You can do better. Plenty fish out there.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 02/03/2021 - 13:44
      +4

      Unfortunately Kogan has requested to be removed from Price Hipster. Make of that what you will.

      • Neoika on 02/03/2021 - 13:51

        Matt Blatt gone too.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 02/03/2021 - 13:54

          Yes. Same company.

      • Clear on 02/03/2021 - 21:12

        ACCC can't track them doing dodgy with sales so easily ;)

      • CVonC on 25/09/2021 - 20:46

        Only just realised this! So friggen lame!

  • Olokun on 04/03/2021 - 20:51

    appears catch URLs are missing a period after “www”

    https://wwwcatch.com.au/product/moana-storybook-and-jigsaw-4…

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 05/03/2021 - 07:33

      Thanks for letting me know. I've sent Catch a message letting them know their feed is incorrect.

  • wazza23 on 07/03/2021 - 23:07

    Good guys gone?

  • walahbro on 24/03/2021 - 08:58

    @jazoom

    Just letting you know Anaconda has dropped off Pricehipster

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 24/03/2021 - 11:21

      Thanks mate. Yeah, their feed is no longer available to Price Hipster.

      • walahbro on 24/03/2021 - 11:22

        thats disappointing, they were one of my fav's, thanks for letting me know!

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 24/03/2021 - 11:24

          No probs. Hopefully they'll be back some day.

          • walahbro on 23/04/2021 - 15:52

            @jazoom: it will be a month tomorrow since we lost anaconda off your website, I'm still having withdrawals, no return as yet?
            anyone I can harass at anaconda to get things flowing again?

            • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 25/04/2021 - 12:15
              +1

              @walahbro: I don't have any contacts at Anaconda. Perhaps their social media pages would be the place to start?

          • walahbro on 23/04/2021 - 15:53

            @jazoom: on a separate note, has Bunnings also fallen off the radar? just noticed today..

            • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 25/04/2021 - 12:15
              +1

              @walahbro: Yup, it has. I'm looking into that right now.

            • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 25/04/2021 - 13:23
              +1

              @walahbro: It looks like they're A/B testing a new website. Things might be a bit rough for Bunnings until they move over to the new website completely.

  • [Deactivated] on 11/04/2021 - 17:14
    -1

    Hi jazoom

    First of all, incredible resource. I have been using it intermittently over the course of a few years and have definitely found a few bargains to add to my eBay store via Price Hipster.

    My main gripes with it are that it is oversaturated with ridiculous ''was'' prices, which makes trawling through it for the legitimate deals quite a time suck, and, that the discount rate only applies from the last known price (i.e. an item could be down over 90% overall, but if the last price drop was only 5%, then that is all it is going to appear as, and it won't rank when we filter our search results). Not sure of the complexity of having a filter that is capable of capturing the discount from the ''highest price point" and including it as an option? (but then I guess the top results would be still filled with items with ridiculous "was" prices anyhow). My third issue is that it is so popular that people keep stealing my deals before I can get to them :P

    OK… now the reason I am actually contacting you is because Big W doesn't seem to be working on my Price Hipster anymore. I know Anaconda and Target have disappeared recently too (which was a disappointment, especially Anaconda - yes I will write to them to say I would love to see them back on Price Hipster and that their request to be removed is not in sync with being transparent about their pricing).

    You have spoke of monetising PH eventually. My thought has always been that if I owned PH and I wanted to make money off it, then I would simply delist it (i.e. remove the website) and buy all the bargains myself for resale LOL. Without anyone else having access to the platform, there would be almost no competition and I am sure you could easily acquire considerable holdings in a short while. I would quietly target other sites not currently included on PH (even the ones that don't want to be targeted), and I would create a filter which allowed me to filter by "discount from highest price point". Given you are a doctor might not be worth your while, but also given the time you've spent on this thing, it just might be too.

    I have acquired millions of dollars in holdings from major retailers by targeting them through much less elaborate methods (just by simply becoming an expert on their products and watching their clearance lines like a hawk). If I had your skills I am definitely sure I could add a couple of million per year to my holdings. If you are interested in some kind of partnership we could definitely talk about that too. I have a few retailers in mind that I would love to target intensively. These retailers are not currently listed on PH and due to guys like me they will be unlikely to ever do anything like that as it will just bring unwanted commercial targeting of their outlets. But we can still target them without their knowledge or approval :)

    Thanks,

    Marc.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 18/04/2021 - 14:11
      +1

      Hi Marc,

      False prices is a constant headache. Many retailers really struggle with keeping their pricing consistent. Price Hipster tries to work around this but it's not perfect.

      Unfortunately Woolworths and Big W are doing something that is preventing Price Hipster from accessing their websites. I have tried to reach out to the appropriate team there but haven't heard back.

      Your bargain hunting at scale sounds interesting, but it's really not my cup of tea. All the best!

  • MeesusEff on 15/04/2021 - 00:58

    Hi, has Big W been removed from Pricehipster? Their store is still in the drop down list but no results. Ive been tracking heaps of purchases with Big W :(

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 18/04/2021 - 14:12
      +1

      Unfortunately Woolworths and Big W are doing something that is preventing Price Hipster from accessing their websites. I have tried to reach out to the appropriate team there but haven't heard back.

      • MeesusEff on 20/04/2021 - 01:20

        Damn, hope you have some luck with it. I've built up quite a hefty price protection list from there being the closest pickup store lol. Thanks for the response! Love your site btw

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 22/04/2021 - 11:27

          Thank you :)

  • gazzas on 16/04/2021 - 11:38

    Hey OP, love your site! I've noticed a few sites that seem to disappear recently. Any news on when they might be back?
    - Woolworths
    - Big W
    Also, any chance to add Costco?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 18/04/2021 - 14:12
      +1

      Unfortunately Woolworths and Big W are doing something that is preventing Price Hipster from accessing their websites. I have tried to reach out to the appropriate team there but haven't heard back.

      I've thought about Costco. One of the problems is their online pricing is different to their in-store pricing.

      • gazzas on 19/04/2021 - 13:14

        Thanks OP.

        Have you considered adding IKEA too? Their online price is same as in-store pricing.

        • bloomer on 19/04/2021 - 20:32

          Not quite true for many of the real bargains on discontinued items, but seems to be true otherwise. A bigger issue might be that the vast majority of IKEA's prices don't change much across a 6-12month period, so although this data could be interesting to look at, the resources needed for PH to track the prices might be excessive relative to the actual utility to users.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 22/04/2021 - 11:28

            @bloomer: Also I think last time I checked IKEA only had a small portion of their products online.

            • bloomer on 22/04/2021 - 14:12

              @jazoom: Nope, the site definitely has almost the entire range online now that online ordering is possible.

              • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 22/04/2021 - 17:22

                @bloomer: Good to hear they're finally moving into the digital age

      • KayDat on 20/04/2021 - 17:47
        +1

        Good luck, I rely heavily on PH to manage my WW shop. =]

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 22/04/2021 - 11:28

          Thanks!

      • fredblogs on 23/04/2021 - 19:12
        +2

        Might be worth adding something to the website to indicate this, eg each store's last updated time, and/or some message like "unable to retrieve latest prices". That might avoid these repeated questions :)

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 25/04/2021 - 12:14

          That's a really interesting idea. I'll look into what might be the best way to accomplish that.

    • waade395 on 10/05/2021 - 16:09

      costco would be great, even to have awareness of whether they stock particular items. And their online pricing should at least reflect their warehouse specials catalogue I'd think?

  • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/04/2021 - 09:04
    +2

    I got Woolworths back yesterday but only because I'm working around their silly aggressive blocking of traffic to their website. They might disappear again soon.

  • googoogaga on 09/05/2021 - 18:17

    Is Bunnings gone for good?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/05/2021 - 18:26
      +1

      I don't believe so. It seems they're transitioning to a new website, and they keep changing what version they serve up to the crawler, which is really annoying. I'm just waiting until they get themselves sorted out.

  • treeman on 11/05/2021 - 21:29

    No Big W atm.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/05/2021 - 13:31
      +1

      Back for now

  • [Deactivated] on 15/05/2021 - 14:55
    +1

    What the hell happened to Anaconda? I used that every week for fishing items.

    Can you also add BCF?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/05/2021 - 15:31
      +1

      Anaconda pulled out. Let them know you'd like to see them back on Price Hipster.

      • [Deactivated] on 15/05/2021 - 21:53
        +1

        Can't you just re add them? We really need something that tracks fishing prices.

        Davos Tackle would be great too

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/05/2021 - 07:31

          Technically I could, but there's a huge time/maintenance cost for each website that is crawled. Only a few stores are handled that way. Hundreds of others provide me with a feed. That is what I would require from Anaconda or Davos Tackle.

  • [Deactivated] on 16/05/2021 - 08:01

    If you add Davos Tackle and Anaconda I'll spread your website around every fishing community in Victoria. Haha that's the best I can do. It's around 15,000 people.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/05/2021 - 08:17

      If those 15000 people reached out to Anaconda and Davos Tackle I bet they'd provide a feed ;-)

      • [Deactivated] on 16/05/2021 - 09:34

        Double edged sword isn't it. Retailers don't want consumers to be able to see historical trends as it only gets consumers in the door when they heavily discount. Consumers will then know when an item is likely to be put on special. It's not in the best interest for the retailer to help provide this information as selling an item at full whack is hard later down the track.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/05/2021 - 10:17

          I think most retailers see the value. Almost all stores on pricehipster.com provide the feed.

  • GreenGuava on 26/05/2021 - 00:05

    Hey @jazoom, FYI I was browsing just now and noticed that Woolies seems to have dropped off?

    I confirmed by filtering for Woolies only and found that none of my searches came up with any hits.

    Not sure whether this is a glitch or if it was intentional, but I just thought I'd let you know.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/05/2021 - 14:39
      +1

      It's because Woolworths is blocking Price Hipster's crawler. It works intermittently, though. I'm still trying to get in contact with someone at Woolworths to work through the problem.

      All Woolworths products are back as of now.

      • fredblogs on 15/07/2021 - 23:11

        Would it help if we all emailed Woolies to complain?

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/07/2021 - 08:46

          Probably if enough people did

  • Neoika on 15/07/2021 - 20:01

    Catch dropped off now?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 16/07/2021 - 08:47

      I removed them because they weren't keeping their product feed up to date and the prices ended up being incorrect. I've contacted them twice about it now but they haven't so much as replied.

      • mr_alligator on 03/08/2021 - 15:45

        from past experience i also often find Decathlon prices to be out of date.

        BTW awesome work on developing such a great tool. Use if often and found many bargains - looking forward to more retailers being added over time.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/08/2021 - 19:52

          Thanks, Mr Alligator. I'm glad it's useful to you.

          I'll keep an eye on Decathlon.

  • gnarlyman on 26/07/2021 - 09:41
    +1

    No JB anymore?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/07/2021 - 10:27
      +1

      Not at the moment. They've recently made an update to their website and it commits some pretty terrible usability sins. There is now no way to paginate the products. For example, if I wanted to send you a link to page 3 of televisions on their website JB Hi-Fi silently sends you to page 1, every time.

      Also, there is no way for you to jump to, say, page 15 of 30. So if you want to look at items that begin with a letter in the middle of the alphabet, or that have a price in the middle of the price sorting, you're out of luck. Instead you have to click on "load more" and wait their ridiculously long load time to see the next batch, and repeat that for however many pages you want to paginate through.

      This not only makes it a horrible website for human users, but also crawlers. It's just not worth it for me to deal with that at the moment. I'd rather just wait until they realise how dumb this is and bring back pagination.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/07/2021 - 10:54
          +6

          🤷 I promise I won't force you to use it

        • bloomer on 26/07/2021 - 11:22
          +5

          You (popsiee) think the internet works by magic? Jazoom has created a powerful tool, and it can only work at its best when other players make information accessible. Go vent at the other players.

    • Neoika on 26/07/2021 - 20:13

      JB has turned on "eBay online selling mode" due to lockdown and does not want these low prices to be archived.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/07/2021 - 20:43

        I don't think they're doing it on purpose. They probably actually believe their UI isn't bad.

  • RoadZilla on 25/08/2021 - 21:54

    I am so inquisitive how the price history is tracked. What is the logic that is used.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 27/08/2021 - 17:20

      Do you mean how the prices are obtained or how they are recorded and queried?

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