How about Adding Some Analytics to OzB, with Price Trends over Time and Comparing Prices across Products in The Same Category?

wisdomtooth on 06/07/2018 - 18:17
Last edited 06/07/2018 - 18:28 by 1 other user

It seems the posts titling and tagging are standardised enough for the price history to be plotted for each product, product class, or whole category even. Additionally, by crossing those prices with product tables (e.g. GSMarena), prices could also be plotted against features, so that users can identify the best bang for their buck.

For instance:

There are, of course, peculiarities in each deal that may make them an outlier, but (1) the chart need not be an ultimate truth about market prices, but simply a scatter plot over time or over features, and (2) that's easily solved with flyover captions showing the title of each point on the chart, and linking it back to the original post with a click.

Happy to chip in with the tech specs on this (but I'm no hardcore programmer, unfortunately).

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Comments

  • airal3rt on 06/07/2018 - 18:25
    +5

    I like the idea.

  • knobbs on 06/07/2018 - 18:37

    I like the idea but fear there would be too many variations

    • wisdomtooth on 06/07/2018 - 18:46

      In some cases, there sure would. In others, it'd be a matter of filtering for the right tags, categories and keywords.

      The major difficulty I see is with multiple prices and products announced in the same title. But, those can be dealt with later, either by taking the average of those prices, or excluding them altogether in the first instance.

      • Employeescotty @ OzBargain on 06/07/2018 - 21:43

        it'd be a matter of filtering for the right tags, categories and keywords.

        Sounds like too much work for me. However most lists are available in RSS feeds, Samsung EVO Plus MicroSD for example, and it would be a fun exercise for those who are interested in specific products.

        As of developing it into a general solution that will catch all edge cases — sorry don't have time for that.

        • wisdomtooth on 06/07/2018 - 22:10

          Sounds like too much work for me.

          Work for whom? Not developers. For users, perhaps. It's just like searching for products on Amazon or eBay. From the systems side, just a matter of plotting the price quoted on the title against its timestamp (plus a moving avg would be nice).

          However most lists are available in RSS feeds

          Yes, I know. Which is nice. But unfortunately not long enough to chart a price trend or to plot prices against brands or capacity/features.

        • spackbace on 06/07/2018 - 23:24
          +1

          @wisdomtooth:

          From the systems side, just a matter of plotting the price quoted on the title against its timestamp (plus a moving avg would be nice).

          I dunno about you, but that sounds like work to me…

        • wisdomtooth on 06/07/2018 - 23:35

          @Spackbace: Course it's work. Even shopping is work. Is it "too much work", though? Come to think of it, just a matter of including a lil' chart on the search results screen plotting the prices in the titles of the results against their timestamps (perhaps on the column to the right). Will it mean anything? Just depends how precise the search is.

          Anywho, just an idea.

        • dasher86 on 06/07/2018 - 23:47
          +3

          @wisdomtooth:
          Mate users can't even get titles correct…or tag properly even if they do tag.

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