Idea for Bargain Finder Website - Feedback?

[Deactivated] on 05/02/2019 - 15:20
Last edited 05/02/2019 - 17:28

Hey OzBargainers,

I've realised that I have a methodology when looking to buy a new product.

I usually jump on a website like the good guys, find the category, sort by cheapest first, then go down the list searching for reviews until I find a product that people don't hate. The review website I usually rely on is ProductReview, because its pretty independent - I never trust a review on a retailer's site. Of course the system can always be gamed, but you do the best you can.

Once I find a product I like, then I try to remember all the other retailers that might stock it and go about finding the best price amongst them. Often I just want to go and pick it up and not wait a week or two. This is typically my strategy with white goods, but it could also be used for other items I guess.

Anyway, I'm also an app developer, so this is something I can systemise.

It would go to each of the major retailers sites, pull down all their categories, then allow you to search by price or rating first. The ratings would be taken from third party independent websites. It would also give you which retailer had the best price, plus search gumtree and ebay. I was thinking I could let you punch in your postcode too so you could say "Only show products available in my area" etc.

You can't start with reviews using my manual methodology, because many of the "best" products are out of stock / discontinued, so its pointless to start at productreview.

I did a quick scan and its different from shopbot and getprice etc because I am not looking for the little drop shippers, its very much about finding the best quality / value fit products with the big retailers. All those "find the price" sites didn't help me find the best one by category - great if I knew which product I wanted going into it. Once you pick the product, then you can hunt around some more - but this should shorten the research time IMO.

tl;dr - The site can tell you "The cheapest 4 star rated toaster oven, with at least 10 reviews"

I use toaster oven, because right now, there are no deals on OzBargain for them, https://www.ozbargain.com.au/search/node/toaster%20oven?s=t&…

Would you guys / girls use it? Any other ideas? How would you promote it if it was your idea? If it already exists can you please post the example of what you use?

Edit: Thanks everyone! Ok, so what I am hearing is you are pretty skeptical about this working out / meeting your needs more than what is out there right now. So if I make it, I will make it with the view to just do something rough for my own purposes

Poll Options

  • 7
    Awesome idea, do it
  • 14
    It already exists
  • 5
    Wouldn't use it
  • 1
    I don't understand
  • 0
    I don't want good value items and only buy dyson and apple.
General Discussion

Comments

  • Schema on 05/02/2019 - 15:26
    +2

    https://pricehipster.com/

    • [Deactivated] on 05/02/2019 - 15:31
      +1

      Right, so with price hipster how do I know which is the best (not cheapest) toaster oven?

  • swapsey on 05/02/2019 - 15:29

    I think you are onto something but whether we would use it or you could just build your own bargain surfacing tool is the question I have. Starting with products that people would be interested in is certainly what I would do. I would scrape OB for the hottest deals and then only look at those products to start with. It's much easier when you have a smaller net to go fishing.

  • Baysew on 05/02/2019 - 15:31

    http://staticice.com.au/

    A bargain finder website - no that will never amount to much. e.g. https://www.ozbargain.com.au/

    • [Deactivated] on 05/02/2019 - 15:35

      Yeah, so with OzBargain its a great way to find good value items, if I'm looking for a phone I will definitely scour the "mobile" category.

      But I was looking for a dishwasher a while ago and OzBargain wasn't much help.

      StaticIce sure lists all the items from cheapest to most expensive, but I still need to troll through each one to find one that has a good number of reviews and has a 4 star rating. Plus its missing a bunch of options - its using a plain text instead of category search. Its great if I am in the last stage and know what I want to buy, but not so great if I don't know what I want yet.

      edit. So yeah, its staticice, but by category, cross referenced by independent reviews. It should be able to say, "Give me the cheapest 4 star rated toaster oven with more than 10 reviews, buy from here."

      • neil on 05/02/2019 - 15:50
        +1

        But I was looking for a dishwasher a while ago and OzBargain wasn't much help.

        Dishwasher

        All the latest deals and on the right are the most popular products with reviews from ProductReview. :)

        Choice actually has something you are talking about and their reviews actually involve product testing and you can sort by price. Downside is that it does require a subscription and the prices are just average, not the best current market price.

        • [Deactivated] on 05/02/2019 - 16:13

          For the dishwasher purchase we ultimately used choice! But yeah their prices are just a guide.

          Unfortunately OzB only has one non expired deal in that link, and only two dishwashers posted since 1st December. I didn't know about the productreview thing on the side which is cool, but would be great if there was the number of reviews (1 review isn't an average!)

          Maybe I should just make a browser extension that pulls the product review rating, review count, and a link and injects it into the various retailers sites.

  • bongom on 05/02/2019 - 16:01

    Product reviews are subjective, e.g. look at Amazon reviews to see how far opinions can differ?

  • 0FoxGiven on 05/02/2019 - 16:12
    +1

    I just use Ozb for that :)

  • Hellfire on 05/02/2019 - 17:02
    +1

    ProductReviews is pretty useless. It's either people going there to complain or companies gaming the system.

  • bargainhunter87 on 05/02/2019 - 17:02

    Hope you've secured IP rights before advertising this brilliant idea on a public forum.

    • [Deactivated] on 05/02/2019 - 17:04
      +1

      Honestly I don't have a business model for it - if you start taking kickbacks, you will have to not list everyone, and advertising is weak. If someone wants to make a better one than me, awesome, i'll use that

  • [Deactivated] on 05/02/2019 - 17:14
    +4

    I have a good name suggestion for your site:

    Best & Less

    I hope it's not taken.

  • Quantumcat on 05/02/2019 - 20:52

    ProductReview is just a contest to see which companies are willing to spend the most on shill reviews.

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