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

    • Olokun on 03/11/2015 - 11:32

      I was looking at trent86, TA and EC post stats and thinking they make a perfect list to work off.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 16:11
      +2

      Yeah I was considering that. But the reality is, there are other factors in my decision of which order to do things in. I wouldn't want to make a poll and then have you guys think I ignored your opinions.

    • AncientWisdom on 04/11/2015 - 11:59
      +1

      I'd say the poll stuff comes later when the site is more mature. Can also utilise something like User Voice when you have a large user base and main functionality is already implemented.

      I'd also like to point out (as an IT professional) that people don't always know what they want/need or what's best for them. They often think they do but then comes a different idea/implementation and they go "OMG this is amazing". So good to keep that in mind. A good service is one that balances well the input from users with a good vision :-)

  • gummibears on 03/11/2015 - 12:01

    Awesome! Great work mate.

  • Snax912 on 03/11/2015 - 12:04

    Awesome Site! Definitely has potential.

    My 2cents.

    Definitely needs some sorting options, both Price and Alphabetical.

    Also a "Lowest Price = $xx.xx" Next to the graph, below the current price would be awesome, as the graph is a bit
    hard to actually work out what the price has been.

    Some kind of Shopping Cart / Wish List that groups items into stores would be awesome too! Would work very well with coles / safeway. Much quicker than their own apps.

    A watch list with email alerts (I'm sure you've thought of that already)

    +1 for, Target, Kogan, and the popular PC stores (PCCaseGear, MSY, Centrecom, etc)

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 16:13
      +1

      Yup, most of those have been mentioned in this thread. You'll get most of your wishes soon.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:27

      Search filtering has now been added, among other things. Target also made the list. :)

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 11/02/2016 - 09:56

      Hi wright912, just updating you that another of your requests has been granted. You can now sort results. Thanks for the feedback!

  • Andrewwwwww on 03/11/2015 - 16:08
    +1

    I found it great! Especially the history. Are you considering adding overseas stores?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 16:13

      Maybe, but it would be separate.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:28

      No overseas stores yet, but now there are 15 local stores. :)

  • misterpotatomato on 03/11/2015 - 16:52

    dreamy sigh

    I made a site for the DELL Outlet but this blows it out of the water. I can't even begin to wrap my head around half of the stuff that you would have had to do to make this sucker work. You must be a pro at Javascript and a heckuva lot of other things.

    None of my business but is it ASP .NET or PHP?

    It's a good site :) I only wish my site looked that good and had that level of functionality! Haha.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 18:05
      +3

      You can do anything with any backend technology. The stuff you actually see is the frontend, and I built it on React.

      I certainly had to learn many new skills along the path to creating this.

      • fredblogs on 04/11/2015 - 18:51

        Curious, what made you choose React over the thousands of other choices?

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 18:58

          It's pretty lightweight and straightforward to use.

  • mrgeckoz on 03/11/2015 - 17:14
    +1

    just wanna say ozb community greatly appreciate your effort…
    oz version of camelcamelcamel, and much better!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 18:02

      thanks :)

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:29
      +1

      and now even more betterer

      • mrgeckoz on 10/12/2015 - 21:38
        +1

        good on ya！

  • shhh666 on 03/11/2015 - 17:14

    Awesome.. It's fast…woow. Even the Coles Woolworths sites won't load so fast… Keep it up buddy…
    Sorry no suggestions.. I guess you have lots already..

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 18:02
      +3

      Yeah, the feedback has been great!

  • allegiance86 on 03/11/2015 - 18:41
    +1

    Amazing work mate! Once there are more vendors this is going to be BOSS!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:29

      More vendors granted. Is it BOSS yet?

      • allegiance86 on 13/12/2015 - 20:59

        Excellent thanks for the update <3 It

  • StalkingIbis on 03/11/2015 - 18:50
    +2

    a formal well done brother! this thing looks like its gonna be the business!!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 20:10
      +1

      thanks bro

  • Tech and cars on 03/11/2015 - 19:59
    +3

    I barely ever log in - but I wanted to log in to say amazing work. I absolutely love the website!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 20:14
      +2

      Thanks for using your yearly login to give me feedback!

  • crudman on 03/11/2015 - 20:02

    There are several things which could be considered dodgy. Some are generally ignored since they provide a benefit to the company but others are not.

    The most obvious to me are:
    Using Trade Marks without authorisation (e.g. Woolworths logo and products such as Pringles)
    Copyright (e.g. photos)
    Breaching Terms of Use (e.g. scraping for some sites but not all)

    While I can't see any huge problem now since you are giving free advertising and traffic, when you monetise it could become a problem. For example when you are using their Trade Marks to create a profit for yourself.

    I know it's an initial release but initial thoughts:

    • Quantity for things such as chips (mg) are required. Images you can't always go by due to them not always representing the actual product, nor can you see the tiny text all the time if it is accurate.

    • Shipping is excluded which can make or break deals in a lot of cases.

    • When you search for something it is not really helpful. E.g. "optimum tuna". Even if mg as point 1 is implemented there is no cost/mg to find the cheapest item. Similarly price history is not that useful due to not considering different suppliers. If you want a useful price history look at Camelcamelcamel.com

  • crudman on 03/11/2015 - 20:18
    -1

    Also, while your site looks nice, clean and modern… I don't see how it offers anything better than existing websites such as shopbot.com.au and statice, they both offer a faster way to find the cheapest item you are looking for. The only edge would be a price history implemented as above but that may not even be feasible on a large scale.

    • malouphix on 03/11/2015 - 21:31
      +4

      The Price Hipster user experience is so much better than those dinosaurs you've mentioned. They've been around for ages, this one is fresh off the blocks, imagine how much better it will become with time.

      http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Price+Hipster :)

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:31
        +1

        Hi malouphix, time has had its way and it is now even better, as you predicted :)

        • malouphix on 10/12/2015 - 19:42

          Hi jazoom,

          Nicely done. You have outdone yourself yet again.

          the bargains are strong in this one

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 19:43
          +1

          @malouphix: the bargains are strong in this one

          hahaha

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/11/2015 - 21:51
      +6

      You are welcome not to use it.

  • dealman on 03/11/2015 - 22:45

    Got to tell you amazing work,

    Site loads quickly searches quicker than google, Super quick, Love it…

    Just one suggestion, For example in this detail view

    http://i.imgur.com/GlPL6ao.png

    Can I get an Item number or code or something else with which I can search the product, Currently you just give me the header description which in this case is pretty lame since Seagate might have many different models with same 2 Bay 4TB configuration..

    Thanks again wonderful product.

    PS: Love the name too.. and the Urban Dictionary Definition…

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 07:47

      Thanks for the feedback. I agree model numbers would be a good addition. It's something I'll consider adding later.

      Yeah, whoever made that urban dictionary definition is a champ.

  • Cheap as chips on 03/11/2015 - 23:49
    +1

    Speed is instantaneous here in WA (at least for me) :)

  • illumination on 04/11/2015 - 00:00
    +1

    Very very impressive. I really like it.
    +1 for Priceline and other health stores (Chemist Warehouse, Amcal, Discount Drug Stores, Cincotta would probably be the other main ones)
    An item I was searching for (Blackmores Odourless Fish Oil) is $19.99 at Priceline but it doesn't appear on the site (because you haven't indexed it)

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 07:50

      Added to the list. Thanks for the feedback!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:32
      +1

      Hi illumination! Just letting you know that I released a big update today with 15 stores. Unfortunately pharmacies didn't make the cut this time, but they are on my radar!

  • basilv on 04/11/2015 - 00:06

    You should add functionality for yourself to "merge" the same product from multiple stores into one product result. I understand this would be very difficult to do in an automated way due to a lack of consistent SKU and different naming conventions, but this could be done manually over time so that at least the really popular stuff worked this way. If the site became the go-to resource for bargain-hunters such as the community here, the userbase itself could do all the work for you. You could either allow all users to merge, but with a moderation step required to approve it, or you could just allow a team of trusted superusers to do this without any moderation required. You could build this into the frontend design so that the user could just drag a product over the top of another to merge it.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 07:53

      That's definitely a possibility and something I have considered. It'll be revisited when the user base has grown. Thanks for the suggestion!

  • SuperSemen on 04/11/2015 - 02:47

    Is it possible to include a business which sells sunglasses, i.e raybans etc, and not the ugly looking ones that Dick Smith sell? Thanks!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 07:55

      Noted. Thanks!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:34

      Hi SuperSemen. Just keeping you updated and letting you know that there are now 15 stores indexed. None are purely for sunglasses but it brings up heaps from Myer and David Jones.

  • ExPrinceHairy on 04/11/2015 - 09:16
    +1

    Brilliant site!

  • exc3113nce on 04/11/2015 - 11:47

    Did you get in contact with Gecko? Based on his comments here I think it would be extremely important to make sure you legally circumnavigate all the issues he mentioned.

    Cool site though! Well done! Wish you all the best!

    In terms of Algolia - is each website scanned and each product a record? Or is each website a record.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:35

      Hi exc3113nce. I only just saw your comment now, sorry. In answer to your question, each product is a record.

  • RocketSwitch on 04/11/2015 - 11:48
    +1

    This is amazing. Great work, love the UX in this.

    Can't wait to see how this will evolve, well done OP!!

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:35

      This is how it's evolving. :)

  • Voldox on 04/11/2015 - 13:29

    Accessing this from my work gives

    The SSL handshake could not be performed.
    Host: www.pricehipster.com.au
    Reason: error:14094410:SSL routines:SSL3_READ_BYTES:sslv3 alert handshake failure

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 15:26

      Hey, thanks for the report. I'd say this means either your browser doesn't support the secure protocol that CloudFlare uses, or communication has been blocked by your employer. There's nothing I can do about that, sorry.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:36

      Hi Voldox. I made some changes to make the website kinder to old SSL, among others. I hope you can access it from work now.

  • [Deactivated] on 04/11/2015 - 13:30

    Really cool, but yes it will be more useful once you have indexed more stores.
    Also it will be great if you can tell us which search framework you are using, or if you coded it all by yourself :-)

    Nevertheless, great job and good luck!

    PS: I cant see the bottom bar on chrome or safari too.

    • [Deactivated] on 04/11/2015 - 13:35

      Looks like you you are using typeahead.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:37

        Hi rattlerr, it's using multiple technologies but the one you're probably looking for is Algolia.

        Also, as you wished, more stores indexed. :)

  • Mumbles on 04/11/2015 - 14:32

    Wow! As this is not a finalised project I am super impressed at where it is at. Just having a useful graph has put this one up on the competition.

    From a coding perspective your site is fast and very stable.

    I hope you continue to have fun building this site and wish you all the best.

    A possible future problem that hasn't been mentioned is load testing and stress testing. A lot of price/search crawler sites can funnel a lot of traffic during different times of year.

    Eg. What happens to your website on the "Black Friday" sales if OzBargainers swamp your site while some of the hyperlinked sites have crashed or slowed (ie. JB Hifi, Harvey Norman, Myers, David Jones).

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 15:28
      +1

      it'll be fine :-) I've built the infrastructure to be easily scalable at every level.

      • Mumbles on 04/11/2015 - 15:41

        I'm hoping you get some positive publicity during the "Click Frenzy" sale period.

        By the way, Click Frenzy starts in a fortnights time:
        https://www.clickfrenzy.com.au/

        Mwhahahaha. I am looking forward to hearing about the internet chaos ;)

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:38

          Hi Mumbles. I missed Click Frenzy but I'm happy to get the major update out before Christmas!

  • 1Kenobi on 04/11/2015 - 15:53

    I get a blank page in firefox and a working site in Safari ?!?
    Seems to be adblock plus blocking it
    -S

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 17:51

      Yes, I'm not sure why that is. I actually tried installing AdBlock Plus on Firefox and I couldn't see a problem. I don't know what it's doing preventing it from working anyway, since Price Hipster serves no ads.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 05/11/2015 - 09:27

      Hi, would you please check if it's still doing that thing in Firefox with AdBlock? I just fixed another issue and it's possible the AdBlock issue will be fixed by it as well.

  • rompastompa on 04/11/2015 - 16:20
    +2

    Your website is very fast and flows nicely. I subscribed to your newsletter.

    I'm not sure if it's been mentioned (5 pages so far!), but with grocery items, it'll be good to have price per 100mL/100gm etc.

    Some stores:

    Appliances Online
    Camera Warehouse
    SurfStitch
    BWS
    Dan Murphy's
    chemistwarehouse
    Australia Post
    MSY
    PLE

    so,so many more.

    Also an advanced search to search specific stores might be nice.

    Order by price, item, store (e.g. If you were looking at a Seagate NAS, but deciding how many bays you were after, you may want to see and compare all items.).

    Change layout to list rather than huge thumbnails.

    Thanks for your time/effort :)

    Edit: Subscribing to the newsletter timed out as I was looking at your website :) no where to re-subscribe? I also had to copy/paste the link, clicking on it just opens a blank page. (Also; Website said 10 minutes, e-mail said 15 minutes).

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 17:58

      Hey, thanks so much for all the info!

      15 minutes is correct. I'll make the change on the website.

      Currently you just have to wait for the popup to come back to subscribe since I haven't built that into the UI yet.

      That blank page issue is really annoying, I know. Sorry. It happens on some devices. I'm still getting to the bottom of it.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:39

      Hi rompastompa! Just letting you know that there are now many more stores indexed, as well as advanced search filters. More info here. :)

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 11/02/2016 - 10:00
      +1

      Just updating you that another of your suggestions has been implemented. You can now sort search results! Thanks heaps for the feedback!

  • ily on 04/11/2015 - 16:34
    +1

    Will you have a price alert soon?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 17:58
      +1

      yup

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:39
      +1

      The time has come :)

  • centrelink on 04/11/2015 - 16:46

    I love the simplicity of your website.. did you make it all by yourself? Any templates for that style (not scraping data from the third parties)

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 17:59
      +2

      Yes. No templates. All custom-made to reduce code size to an absolute minimum.

  • goingDHfast on 04/11/2015 - 17:16

    No sort by largest discount first? And you say you designed this just for OzBargain…?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 17:59

      I also said I just released the site, and it's a work in progress. ;-)

      and, largest discounts ARE shown first

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:45

      Hi goingDHfast. There is now search filtering, among other things.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 11/02/2016 - 10:01

      And now you can sort by largest discount. Thanks for your input!

  • HeartFeltAxe on 04/11/2015 - 17:28
    +1

    Shit just got real… Thanks dude this is amazing!!!!!!!!!

    If this website went really far, got sponsors and the lot. I would suggest allowing - & + into the search bar. For instance, in google if you want to buy some oars for a kayak, you would search up "Oars Sale" You could put on the end of that -wood. That would allow for all Oars on a sale that ISN'T wood, or if you only wanted a wooden Oar, you would put in "Oar sale +Wood"

    Just an idea that could make things become more useful.
    :) HeartFeltAxe

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 18:01

      thanks for the kind words and suggestion

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:46

      Hi HeartFeltAxe! I released a major update today. Search filters are included.

  • timetoquit on 04/11/2015 - 18:31

    As an end consumer user I really like the layout and design!

    Surprisingly quick, visually appealing and a site I would use often and recommend. Must be exciting for you to see how it will eventually evolve, considering all the positive comments.

    Keep it up! Wishing you all the success and stress that will come with it! πŸ‘πŸΌπŸ‘πŸΌπŸ‘πŸΌ

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/12/2015 - 18:46

      Hi winnieblues. Phase one of the evolution dropped today. :)

  • Bill Sneddon on 04/11/2015 - 18:47
    +1

    Great idea, are you interested in selling some equity in this business?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 19:00

      to who?

      • ahly92 on 07/11/2015 - 16:57

        me…i'll buy 10 % for 5K?

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 07/11/2015 - 17:47

          Thanks for the offer but I'll pass. I'm not hurting for money.

  • color on 04/11/2015 - 19:34

    blank page when i open it in firefox browser
    works fine on google chrome

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 19:36

      Which version of Firefox? Does it load when you hit refresh?

      • color on 04/11/2015 - 19:55
        +1

        Version 42.0
        nope nothing just blank white page
        oh i found out what blocking it, it was adblock plus firefox extension for blocking adds ^_^

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 20:43
          +1

          I'm not sure why it blocks Price Hipster.

          For now, if you want to use an adblocker I recommend uBlock origin. IMO it's much better.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 05/11/2015 - 09:22

          Hi color, would you please check if it's still doing this in your Firefox? I just changed something to fix another issue and it's possible it will fix this as well.

        • color on 05/11/2015 - 11:32

          @jazoom:

          ok its working now even if adblock plus is on πŸ‘

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 05/11/2015 - 12:26

          @color: Yay! Thanks :)

  • Lucky13 on 04/11/2015 - 20:54

    Price Hipster, finding out prices before it was cool :) http://memegenerator.net/instance2/2738952

  • ChemicalMan on 04/11/2015 - 21:22

    Nice site.

    As a suggestion, it would be great if images linked to third party sites don't get re-rendered when you hit the refresh button.

    Furthermore, as you are already scraping sites without asking for permission, why don't you just scrape Lasoo and similar sites?

  • tootski on 04/11/2015 - 22:32

    Great effort and appreciate any tool that makes finding bargains easier! It may have been mentioned earlier, but I hope the front page items are ranked appropriately, else you'll find company's will exploit this by making a big discount to manipulate front page results. A relevance or frequently searched algorithm should help…

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 22:34

      That's already built in.

      • tootski on 04/11/2015 - 22:38
        -1

        Really??? All that Woolworths Sistema crap on the front page? Surely eneloop batteries or dyson vacuums should be on the front page according to the OzBargain ratings :-)

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/11/2015 - 22:47

          One man's crap is another mum's treasure.

          Some days, there just aren't many price drops. Keep in mind, there are only 5 stores represented.

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