Hi,
There has been a flurry of "deals" from the usual online discount stores, Kmart etc recently. Just wondering if a public calendar on Google Calendar, or Apple iCal containing these deals may be a good idea. That may make it easier for buyers to keep track of deals.
I think having public Google Calendar is a great idea, as many of the deals are for a couple of days. With many bargains around, it's easy to get as many as 5 deals in a day, and therefore some may get overlooked fast.
Just don't limit it to Kmart, etc etc, even some small deals should also be included in the calendar.
I am not sure how you can enforce the calendar, I prefer public editing (with supervision), but then, I don't mind limit into one person editing as well.
What about a "remind me later" feature for this website? I think it was the paypal valentines email that had this feature and I thought it was a brilliant idea. For example, if there was a deal posted that started next month, you could select the "remind me later" button and ozbargain would email you on the date that deal starts reminding you of the deal!
Trudy
I liked the idea.
Another suggestion is maybe to re-instate an almost over deal? Maybe deal with high votes (user to set preference) will be shown again in front page or like trudy said, an email sent to the user.
Some kind of eBay reminder before bidding end. This could also help people who misses out good deals that are burried under other deals.
Okay. The actual implementation details can be a bit vague. Re-instate an old deal is a good idea as many merchants can't seem to make up their mind on the exact termination date of their deals :)
Obviously the limitation right now is that there is no starting date associated with each deal so every deal is assumed to be effective now (which is not always the case). It shouldn't be too hard to add this in, which will make "remind me later" a possibility.
Nice request though. I can't wait to spam everyone with "deal reminders" every morning :)
One problem with deals is, that they are usually announced a few days before the sale (sometimes on the same day!) and only last for a few days. Therefore a public calendar might not be that useful as you can't really see into the future and plan ahead.
I don't mind creating one (Google Calendar is easy to automate with its API), if the marketing guys from Kmart, Deals Direct and Dell can tell me all their 2008 sales in advance :)