Our goal is simple — bringing the best deals and bargains in Australia to consumers. Too

ambitious? Surely it is! Therefore we need your help. Instead of finding all the great bargains

ourselves, you, one of the best bargain hunters in the land of Down Under, can bring in your hottest

findings and share with the rest of us.

OzBargain is you, the community of on-line shoppers in Australia. This is the place where we share

the best bargains in Australia and share them with each other.

OzBargain is developed by scotty, a Sydney based software programmer, and with help from a small

team of moderators.

How does it work?

- Register an account.

- Submit a new bargain.

- (If you are affiliated with a company, make sure you read the strict rules on representatives. If you're unsure, click here)

(From June 2009, we have had to introduce a 24 hour submission ban for new users in order to fight spammers. Please see Deal Sumbissions for more information)

Please follow a few simple guidelines to make OzBargain a better place for both the bargain hunters and

merchants.

Summary

^

Your “comment” might attract negative votes from OzBargain members and/or getting unpublished if you

post the following material;

If your comment is posted twice or more, Moderators will remove/unpublish all of the duplicates other

than the first one.

Abuse, name calling and malicious comments directed at a person or a group of people are unacceptable.

Disagreements and debates are fine and encouraged but please respect everyone's opinion. If you see an

argument please click 'report' below the post, write a simple discription, and click submit.

Summary:

^

Affiliate links are generally not welcomed over here in OzBargain. Not that we do not want you to make

money, but instead we already have a very good cashback scheme in place that

is partnered with many affiliation networks in Australia. Therefore by using your link, our members

might miss out the chance of getting cashback, which makes your deal more expensive!

However, if there is no affiliation network that can provide cashback to our members, i.e. they will

have to pay the same amount anyway if they don't click through your link, then the moderators here might

turn a blind eye on it. Please make sure that you put enough declaration in your post about the

affiliate link.

Affiliate links are to be posted in the body of the deal, not the main deal URL. They must also have

“AFFILIATE LINK: <url>” written next to it.

Moderators have the right to remove any Affiliation Links at their own discression. Occasionally we find “post and run” users posting affiliate links on the site. This is one of the quickest way to find yourself in the penalty box.

To reduce the amount of spam, Group Buy Sites are not allowed to have any affiliation links whatsoever.

Summary

^

Please follow a few simple guidelines to make OzBargain a better place for both the bargain hunters and

merchants.

The guidelines are a rough blend of what this site was intended for and the changing attitudes of the

community. They have been written to try and help make your experience here, more pleasant.

Summary for first time users

^

Detailed Explanation for first time users

One thing to avoid is, telling the community that you are new, and asking them to take it

easy on you. A number of people have tried this as their opener and it does not go down well.

Also, note there are markers underneath user ids to indicate if this is your first post and if you are

still new to OzBargain.

It's a good idea to check that you are getting and/or posting a good price.

A few things to check and/or included for your bargain are:

• Did someone else post the deal already? How to search will be explained later
• Is this really the best price on the web List of Price Comparison Sites and Apps
• What is the cost of postage and handling is included, if applicable
• Is this deal accessible from Australia
• If it's specific to a particular location, specify that
• Check the fine print, that a low initial cost does not have a huge responsibility attached
• If it has special conditions (including walk in only, a particular payment method, membership

required) those should be at least referenced in the title and definitely stated in the body of your

deal

Be transparent about why you are posting a deal here:

• Declare upfront if you have a relationship to the business or it's people.
• Declare upfront if you will some how benefit from the posting or if someone asked you to post here.
• If someone might question what is going on, if they found out something about you and your

relationship to the deal, be upfront and include that in the body of the post.

Notes to merchants:

• As OzBargain is a community website, deals that you have posted will be judged and voted by our

community members. Post when you have a bargain and not for plain advertising. Plain adverts may be

removed or may make it difficult for you to post, when you have something that really should be popular.

Always link directly to the specific product page, wherever possible.

Do not link to the company's top-level website unless there is no specific page that could be used

instead. Linking to a top-level website, especially when there is a direct link to the product, is often

regarded as spam-like conduct and is not welcomed.

Also, if you have an affiliate link, link directly to the specific product and if you want to include

the affiliate link in the body of deal, remember to declare that it is an affiliate link.

When there is no direct link to the bargain or information supporting the bargain, you can use the

media file uploader.

The media file uploader is not needed in

the vast majority of cases. The uploader should only be used for scanned images (e.g. catalogues,

flyers) and photos (e.g. receipts, pricing displays) when there is no webpage or website that could be

linked to instead.

In particular, the uploader is not be used to

link to an image of a deal. OzBargain's screenshot engine automatically provides an image of

the webpage posted in the deal. There may be a small delay before the image appears.

Someone else might have already submitted the deal. In that case, vote on the existing deal instead.

Duplicated deals will be deleted.

Please use the search function first before posting anything. You can also use deals by domain

functionality to check all the recent bargains from that store.

Note: To sort your search in order of creation date, with most recent first, add the following to your

sort

sort:created

eg zoo sort:created

• Please check Title Guidelines on how to write descriptive title for your deals.

Please explain clearly what the deal is about:-

1. State the merchant and product model, and provide a brief description if you wish.
2. State the price.
3. State the location (city and state) if it is specific to an area.
4. If it's a deal for walk in customers, mention that
5. If shipping is required, state the shipping cost to major Australian cities if this information is

available; approximate range is ok if the exact cost is variable or not available. (Store

representatives must provide this information - there should be no reason to hide this from

potential customers.) At the least, state ”+Shipping”

1. State any relevant terms & conditions, such as expiry date and any “hidden catches”.
2. Summarise briefly why it is a bargain - why did you buy it or consider it worth sharing? How does

the price compare to elsewhere? Can you comment from personal experience on the quality of the product?

• Do provide the most relevant details but do not copy pages and pages of specifications from the

link.

• Please use the > sign at the start of any line of text copied from webpages, flyers, etc. The

Markdown Markdown Extra syntax will mark this text as a quote (with a left-hand orange border),

rather than appearing to be your own words.

• Note: If you know someone who works for or owns that business or if someone asks you to post or

comment, state this when posting or commenting

• Be descriptive – a title that just says “Big Sale at Myer” is much less useful than a title

that says “Kids Wear 20% off Sale at Myer, Sydney CBD Only”

• Don't be spammy – a title should be informative, i.e. providing sufficient information to let

other members to decide whether it is a good bargain. “Marketing speak” is not informative.

1. Product model. May include relevant - but brief - specifications such as screen size.
2. Price. May include discount or saving (e.g. “$2 off” or “half price) if enough space.
3. Shipping cost. Exact cost if known or approximate range.
4. Company/merchant.
5. Location. City/suburb and state (e.g. Abbotsford, VIC) if specific to an area.

• Advertising phrases. Like “Great price!” and “Hurry!” and most other things with an exclamation

mark. Good bargains speak for themselves, and the community will ultimately decide with its votes.

Advertising phrases are annoying and waste space that could be used to communicate relevant information.

• Too many specifications. Specifications become meaningless when there are numerous bunches of

numbers and letters. These should be included in the description instead.

• If model number/code is specified in the title, it should provide sufficient information for other

members to find out the exact specification.

• Spelling errors.

• Acersus EeeWind 1234 netbook w/ Atom 1GHz CPU & 10” screen - $499 + $19 shipping - ComputerStore.com.au

• BEST BARGIN EVER - cheap 1234 net computer - not many at this price save $100! warrenty
• CHEAPEST CRAZY BARGAINS OMG YOU WONT BELIEVE IT!

—————-

Please use the following as guidelines to voting using EBAY's feedback system as an example.

If the deal doesn't apply to you, you don't like the company, you want to leave a warning for people

about the business or deal, you might want to leave a comment and then not vote.

If you have any association or relationship with the business or the dealings related to the offer, do

not vote. (eg employee, owner, built the website for them, supplier, in a relationship with someone in the

business)

If you have any association or relationship with a competitor's business or organisation, do not vote.

If your reason is purely that you've been asked to vote by someone, do not vote.

Please vote positive if you feel the deal is good. This encourages the poster to share more deals as

they know its appreciated

If you are associated with the Deal or company DON'T VOTE. Friend, Family, employees, shareholders,

media relations, developers, contractor, affiliate etc In other words you are independent from the

company or deal. All infractions may lead to a ban and post being revoked.

There has been an additional tool provided to all members to assist in quickly identifying inappropriate

posts and comments.

USING the NEGATIVE vote instead of the report function has one side effect that you should be aware of.

IF a poster gets more than two negative votes the system, locks them out of posting again for 5 days. Is

this what you want to happen to the poster, when it may just be a simple mistake.

This is the REPORT button that can be found just under the NUMBER OF CLICKS that a post has. You will

find a number of reasons that you can choose from like Duplicate, Sold Out, Expired, Spam,

Sockpuppeting, Illegal/Inappropriate. or you can write your own. As well there is the “talk to the

moderator forum”, where you can discuss an issue in greater depth, and give your reasons for concern

For a comment, the REPORT function is found at the bottom of each comment close to the REPLY button

Many people dont like a deal, and want others to know about some issues they have with the deal, as

evidenced by the comments made about a deal when they negatively vote. The IRONY for you to consider is

that if a deal gets a number of negative votes, it is removed from most visitors screens. So your

considered comments go as well.

(However, if there are listing violations such as duplicate, SPAM or sockpuppeting, you can use the

Report link, found just under the body of the deal, to let the mods know there's a problem)

Negative votes are also appropriate when there maybe something wrong with the product. Eg an automobile

accessory that may be cute, but might be against ADR's (Australian Design Rules). Or an telephone

product that hasn't passed local approvals. Safety issues

Reliability issues are also important to know about. However this comes into a gray area. If it didn't

work for you, maybe a post with no vote attached, if you know others have had issues and have seen bad

reports elsewhere a post with link if possible and a negative vote is appropriate

Negative votes are also limited per day per user.

Please do not vote negative just because a deal is sold out. If the title of a deal needs to be updated

to reflect the deal no longer available, please use the REPORT link instead for mods to update the deal.

Negative votes made for this reason will be revoked by mods.

Negative votes do have an impact - new members tend to shy away fearing that their deals may not be good

enough. Let the lack of positive votes tell them what appeals without, jumping on them. Also your

opinion on what makes a good deal may not fit with the others here, a little encouragement goes a long

way to building the information network this site is all about.

IF a poster gets more than two negative votes the system, locks them out of posting again for 5 days. Is

your negative a repeat of someone else's negative and would a REPORT be more appropriate - that is it

gets the mods to remove the post.

A negative vote would also be appropriate for cheaper prices elsewhere. In this case, please include a

link or description of where it is cheaper

Note:

• auctions, private sales and expired offers are not the same thing as current offers by physical and

online stores; don't use these to compare prices

• if it's cheaper elsewhere but won't reach everyone the original deal covered, please mention this

but do not vote negative for this reason. Likewise comparing a price to a price from an overseas

location, is good to point out, BUT not appropriate for a negative vote.

If you want to leave a negative for more than one reason (eg needing a correction + cheaper prices

elsewhere), please feel free to list all reasons in your comment.

Please use negative votes sparingly and always REPORT listing violations to moderators by using the

REPORT function, this alerts mods to inappropriate behaviour much faster than your negative vote. And if

you feel so inclined still vote negative AND use the REPORT function if its appropriate

^

                           | 

| Competitions | Freeware software/apps/websites

                         |

| Things that have always been free | Affiliate links (see below)

                         |

| Reps. 1/day max 2/week | Inactive deals (group buy)

                         | 

| Insufficient quantities | Gambling/Betting Deals

                         |

| Charities | Jobs/Work

                         |

| Sites Displaying nudity | Deals from RedBalloon

           |

| URL shorteners | Deals from McDonalds

                                    |

| Private sale of Alcohol | Pirated Software

                         |

| Illegal items | illegal weapons

                         |

| Counterfeit products | Adult products (toys & pornography) |

                         |

There are a number of grey areas regarding bargains. This section of the guidelines covers what is less

desirable. However, the ultimate action taken can vary from one deal to another, based on community

response among other factors.

If a bargain is for a limited quantity, that fact and the quantity, should be publicised in the deal (in

the title ideally).

If a bargain is for a low quantity, it might be “unpublished”.

Where a seller is unknown, has very little history to establish a sales history, or there are other

problems identifying that the end organisation really is a retailer, wholesaler or manufacturer, the

deal might be unpublished or modified.

We've had a number of stores trying to just dump links to their site without identifying anything on

their site that would be a bargain.

So, please make sure to identify a bargain on your site or don't post until you have one or you may even

get your site banned or worse.

If it's a listing on a site such as eBay, Oztion etc please follow all other guidelines to see if the

listing should be excluded for any reason.

Remember to consider whether it really is a bargain as compared with stores.

If it still looks okay, next look at the history of the seller. If they've been selling for a while and

still seem to be active, the listing is more likely to be allowed.

• Related article – Posting Guidelines on eBay

It might be easier to spell out what should not be posted here. Your “deal” might attract negative votes

from OzBargain members and/or getting unpublished if you post the following material.

Don't post duplicates. Please search OzBargain before posting.

Don't post auctions.

Competitions are not deals, so please do not post competitions, contests or anything that only a small

number who have registered might win. If you have a very good competition that you wish to share with

other members at OzBargain, feel free to post in one of our forums.

There are so many useful free software programs and websites out there that if we listed every great

one, then we would be inundated with deals. Feel free to discuss any of these in one of our

forums. Alternatively, add the freeware to its dedicated free

software wiki page – Useful Free Software.

Examples of what you shouldn't post:

• Software: Mozilla Firefox (Free Browser, Always Free)
• Websites: Google (Free Search Engine, Always Free)

Examples of what you should post:

• Software: DVB Web Scheduler Pro is now free (Normally you

have to pay for it, now free)

• Websites: Used Car Ads Free on Carbuddy.com.au (Free for

now but later on not free)

Just like free software and freeware, there are many great charities out there. Charities are not a

bargain but feel free to post any charities or good causes on the forums.

• Related article – Affiliate Links. As of 2010, OzBargain is also using affiliation links to guests, i.e. not logged-in members, as part of its monetisation method.

Affiliate links are generally not welcomed over here in OzBargain. Not that we do not want you to

make money, but instead OzBargain already have a very good cashback scheme in

place that is partnered with many affiliation networks in Australia. Therefore by using your link, our

members might miss out the chance of getting cashback, which makes your deal more expensive!

However, if there is no affiliation network that can provide cashback to our members, i.e. they will

have to pay the same amount anyway if they don't click through your link, then the moderators here

might turn a blind eye on it. Please make sure that you put enough declaration in your post about

the affiliate link. Please do not post affiliate links in the main URL.

Due to the influx of Daily Deal and Group Buy deals, affiliate and/or referral links on such deals are not permitted. This includes links or

codes within the deal description.

Steps to take:

• Check whether this merchant already has commission cashback offered by sites like MoneyBackCo. If

No, then

• Make sure you check that the deal you are posting is not part of a Group Buy or Daily Deal site.
• Make sure you declare your affiliation link. For example,
  • It contains my affiliation link, and if you click through and make purchase, I will be getting

commission from your purchases.

• You can also provide a non-affiliate link (optional).

Moderators still hold the right to unpublish offers or remove affiliation part of the links, if found

inappropriate.

Sites with adult themes should not be posted on OzBargain.

• More discussions in the forum section.

Store reps can post about offers from his/her store. Stores should have only 1 rep. Stores should post

no more than

• 1 bargain per day
• 2 bargains per week

That also means if merchants have something that they want the whole OzBargain community to know, they

need to plan ahead and only post the ones that will attract the best responses.

For everyone else, we are currently having discussions about limits on posting http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/19678

There doesn't seem to be anything official yet, but once you get past 2 listings in the same hour (or 4

in 2 days) some users seem to start scrutinising your deals much more closely.

Think twice if you are posting more than one deal from a site. Are they all really good deals?

It's also possible to post a deal, mentioning the best offer, and mention ”+ more” in the title, then

put details of the other bargains in the same posting (along with direct links to those items too)

If more than one post is found for the same site per day, some posts may be removed to reduce clutter

(especially where postings are not considered bargains).

People generally value their time.

If you know there is a good bargain or two in a sale, catalog or store, it's a good idea to mention one

or even two bargains, in the title, and provide direct links where possible, to those items.

If there are multiple bargains in the same sale, catalog or store, it is still advisable to post once

only. Then multiple items can be listed in the same posting; probably with what looks to be the best or

most popular bargains at the top.

Postings that reference a sale, catalog or store but don't provide enough information to find at least

one bargain, may be unpublished. Multiple postings for the same sale and/or catalog may be unwelcome and may be unpublished. Multiple postings for the one catalog and/or sale are especially unpopular if they all occur on the same

day and if they all come from the same person.

If someone else posted earlier from the same sale or catalog as you now want to publish from, please

post under the other person's listing.

If you do post separately it should be an especially good bargain, it may attract a more critical eye

from some readers and it might still be unpublished.

Group buy sites such as Jumponit & Scoopon sell their items after reaching

a certain number of people who agree to buy their items.

• Only deals that are active are allowed to be posted on Ozbargain. A deal is considered active when a

user goes to purchase the deal and their sale is immediately finalised. A deal is inactive when a site

requires X amount of people for the purchase to go through and that number hasn't been reached. (e.g. 35

bought, 65 more required to get the deal)

• No Referrals. Due to the recent influx of such deals, referral links or codes are not permitted

(including the description) for such sites.

• Please remember to include the state that the deal is applicable to (e.g. $49 for a $100 Dinner

Voucher & a Bottle of Wine at Example Restaurant [NSW])

Deals which involve betting and/or gambling should not be posted.

While discussions on betting and/or gambling may be discussed in the forums, moderators reserve the

right to remove them at their discretion.

Jobs or deals that resemble paid work are not bargains.

Summary of banned items

Items on this list shouldn't be posted on OzBargain. Please note this is not an exhaustive list and may

not list all items.

• R4 Cards

• Adult products (Lingerie, Prophylactics OK, Toys and Pornograpy not OK)

• Counterfeit products

• Illegal Items

• Pirated software

• Private sale of alcohol (Prohibited by law)

• Console modifications that circumvent copyright protection (PS3, Wii, etc.)

• Deals from McDonalds

• URL shorteners (Bit.ly, Ow.ly, etc.)

• Deals from RedBalloon

• Sites displaying nudity.

Moderation Policy

Reasons for moderation
Personal Attack
Off-topic
Trolling
Spam
Duplicate

resubmit your issues, you can

1. Talk with a moderator here with the community seeing the discussion http://www.ozbargain.com.au/forum/5

2. Have a private discussion about the issue here. Where only you and the mods see the discussion http://www.ozbargain.com.au/forum/10041

As there are a number of mods in opening the discussion please make reference to the post by pasting the

url in your topic text.

A mod after discussion may reinstate your comment, etc or modify it, or not. This depends on the

discussion you have with the mod.

For your information Mods can refer back to the post that has been hidden while others cannot, so if you

are making reference to it in the community discussion keep this in mind.

Please include a proper description of why you are voting negative. Votes accompanied by unclear

reasons or inaccurate reasons may be revoked. eg +1, yea, as above, agreed, ditto …. ?? etc. If you

simply agree with someone else's justification on their negative vote and have no further comments, you

can simply not vote and report the deal.

Negatives left to ask for corrections to a post are also helpful (eg a condition left out of the title)

but may be removed after the corrections have been made, either by the original poster or a Mod

In essence the negative vote is a warning. A warning about being a scam, spam, defective product or a

better deal exists already. It is not for saying that the price doesn't match some preconceived idea of

what a bargain is in terms of percentage off. Postage costs can be negatively voted against, if it takes

the total deal over the price of a product that can be obtained from another supplier. But please use

common sense, if this other supplier is not national, then while it might be more expensive for some, it

may not be for others.

Evidence should be provided with the negative post so that members can check this for themselves. If you

suspect something but don't have evidence don't negative vote the deal. Use the Report button so the

mods can investigate.

Votes that do not do pass this warning intent with evidence, can be removed.

All the above does NOT stop you from making comments without a negative vote, that other members might

find useful.

Members who abuse negative voting by breaching the guidelines a number of times may also find they will

earn a ban for a period of time.

Now we come to the gray areas on Negative voting. To which a MOD may or may not remove a vote. Note

please, these guidelines are here for both regulars and moderators, and moderators are free to revoke

reported votes, or are free to ignore them.

If a vote doesn’t meet these we can revoke the vote.

We appeal to all members to think about a negative vote and apply these fundamental tests to them first.

While you’re more than welcome to express your personal opinion against a deal, this alone should not

be used as a reason to vote negative.

1. Is your negative vote really indicating that something is wrong with the deal or the seller. For

example these products are prone to failure based on your information- if so then also put your source

and where others can verify this. If you cant verify your source, then make the comment but skip the

negative vote.

2. Pricing is always subjective. A $1 off a $500 item isn’t much of a bargain, but on a $3 item it is.

But then again to some a $3 item is junk so anything off isn’t a bargain. So really negative votes

purely based on pricing requires caution. Are you imposing your set of values on another in the

community?

3. Comparing a deal that is now, to a deal that is no longer available. This is not a valid reason.

Don't vote at all if you don't like the deal compared to one that was offered last month etc. Yes

sometimes the 50c off a pizza, isn’t a “good” deal compared to the regular offerings of $1 off that many

Pizza stores may make. In this case leave the deal alone, don't vote, make a comment, but it’s not a

valid reason to negatively vote a deal. It's the one that is currently on offer, and 50 cents off or

nothing off is a deal that some might want to take.

4. If the voter has got the “facts” wrong. Eg XYZ's deal cheaper than this deal, when its not. Saying

that at ABC three 300ml Cans for $1.20, is no deal compared to than XYZ's 2 300ml cans for $1.00.

Under these fundamentally wrong tests Mods may, but with an explanation when doing so.

1. Remove your vote

2. Refer your vote to another mod for a second opinion and remove if there is consensus.

3. In reference to 2 a mod might make a comment about your vote for another mod to see and make their

call.

4. Ask you to consider either removing your vote, or give another reason and give you a time frame of at

least 3 hours to do this.

5. If a report has been made about your vote, and the mods have let it stand a small comment about your

vote being valid, may be made after your first comment. For less obvious cases, this is so the reporter

can know the reason why we consider your vote is valid.

NOTE the mods look at your first comment about why you voted negative, they don't go through all the

comments you make, so if you are adding to the reason you voted you must add these to your first

comment.

Any vote that is revoked cannot be restored - that is a limitation of the system.

MODS don't like having to remove votes, we like the system to be self regulating where possible, so mods

will tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, but understand that there is plenty of grey area

here, we may get it wrong, either way.

Mods want people to share deals, that gives more opportunity to others here and they can make their own

assessments if a deal is good for them

To assist in understanding, examples will be added here, over time.

Examples follow…..

Not a bargain.

Agree

SPAM

I dont like the deal

Its not available to everyone (ie only some)

I dont think its a good deal (Doh thats what the negative vote says - the comment is meant for an

explanation of why it is a bad deal)

“Ditto” “see above” etc. - Well its already got a negative vote, for that reason, its not a popularity

test so no need to vote again. And if you feel that strongly that you need to, then it shouldn't be hard

to explain why. Again understand what negative votes are used for

^