Popular (Not Expired) Deals of the Week

273

FREE Coffee from Michel’s Patisserie Posted May 21 Food & Grocery Expires June 30

162

Free Car Phone Holder from NRMA, NSW/Sydney Only Posted May 20 Mobile Expires Dec 20

135

Nexus 7 32GB $206 | 3G $254 @ The Good Guys Posted May 23 Computing

131

Humble Bundle Weekly Deal. Alan Wake + American Nightmare + Boatloads of Extra Content Posted May 23 Gaming Expires May 30

131

CottonOn We LOVE Accessories – Get 10 for $10! Online Only Posted May 18 Fashion & Apparel

See more popular deals ->

Hot Topics from the Forums

Sushi Train wanted to charge 50c for a glass of tap water

One of our members was shocked when a waitress at Sushi Train wanted to charge him 50c for tap water. While most of the discussion has been mixed, it seems to be legal for a licensed restaurant to charge for a glass of water in SA. Lifehacker followed up on the story with Sushi Train stating they don’t have a policy on charging for water but that it is up to the individual store.

Xbox One

This week Microsoft announced their 8th generation gaming console. There was a bit of discussion around the Xbox One on whether Microsoft would charge you for selling/trading your “used” games. While no solid release date for Australia has been set, it seems it should be out before the end of the year. EB Games has a preorder price of $900 while Zavvi will send it for about $700 shipped. You would have to be foolish/hardcore to preorder at this early stage without knowing the release date or price that other retailers are planning to sell the console.

See more forum posts ->

Inside OzBargain

Melbourne Meetup

This is the part where we tell you how awesome the meetup was last Friday. Unfortunately, the day before our event, council banned the venue from hosting functions. It’s a disappointing result for everyone involved. At this point, we are awaiting any news from Bumper Action before finding a new venue.

Sydney Mini Meetup

Scott will be attending CeBit on May 29. All OzBargainers are welcome to say hi and grab a free OzBargain t-shirt.

Starthere Reviews

We have displayed Productreview reviews for stores and products for a few months. One of the issues with Productreview (and all reviews on the Internet) is knowing whether they are legitimate reviews. Many people write on review sites only if they have had a problem. Starthere store reviews are only written by verified purchasers who purchased goods or services via their cashback system. Having a look at Boohoo reviews shows a 2.8/5 rating from ProductReview whereas Starthere reviews come in at 4.5/5.

Google + Integration

We’ve rolled out automatic posting of front page deals that reach > 50 votes to Google+ . It’s still a work in progress, so please give us feedback.

Picture of the Week

Ever eaten at the OzBargain Chinese Restaurant? ;) What names do you use when signing up for freebies? Via Free JUS Food Sample from UnileverFoodSolutions

Stay up to Date with Deals & News

Here are some reports from the developers :) OzBargain has been under some spam bot attack over the last couple of weeks. We first discovered the attack at around mid-April, and through our new account creation logs, we found:

• Lots of new accounts were created with weird sounding names, strange looking @hotmail addresses and originated from all over the world.
• Most newly created account never logged in. However for a few that did manage to come back, the first thing they did is to update their user profile to include a link to their spammy website (or sites loaded with malware, which I didn’t dare to try).
• Going through our webserver logs reveals that they are hitting only the pages and none of the other assets (Javascript, CSS, images, etc). That pretty much concludes that these are “bots”.

We do utilise Google’s reCAPTCHA on the user registration page to stop the bots, but from our incident obviously reCAPTCHA is broken or can be easily defeated. The spam bots however, aren’t very smart either. All of them are using “Firefox/13.0″, a 10-month old browser, as their user-agent. So I ended up just blocking all Firefox 13 on the web server level and be done with it. That stopped the spam account creation pretty much straight away, although also cause some false positives.

Fast forward two weeks and on inspection of our new account creation logs, spam bot accounts are back again! It’s pretty much the same pattern, except they have smartened up and changed the user-agent to the latest Chrome! Well, due to similar behaviour, they are still easy to spot and block. We have been running some new spambot detection code on the user registration page for the last 3 days, and here are some of the stats that we have collected:

Average number of account creation attempts per hour — **320**. That’s 5.3 account creation attempts by spam bot every minute.

Three biggest offending countries — Ukraine, United States and China. Mostly from residential broadband addresses so most likely part of some spambot network.

Going forward, we’ll continue to monitor new accounts for abnormal activities.

tl;dr — OzBargain has been a male dominant site for the past six years. We are hoping to steer OzBargain towards being a more balanced community with a new design.

The Humble Beginning

OzBargain in 2006

It has been more than six years since OzBargain was launched. Before I soft-launched OzBargain back in November 2006, this blog was where I shared electronic, computer and cheap prepaid mobile SIM bargains. This was an era before iPhones and Android devices. But hey, I am a nerdy guy and I love my gadgets.

After OzBargain was launched, we initially received a wave of visitors from other popular Australian forums, namely Whirlpool and OCAU. In fact Whirlpool remains one of our biggest referrer to this very day, sending 2000+ gadget-loving tech-savvy geeks to OzBargain every 24 hours. Again, mostly nerdy blokes.

Cheap,  Tech-Savvy, Geeky and MALE

The figures speak for themselves. For example, these products probably won’t be all that useful if you are a man. However, looking at the commenters and the voters — most of them  will not be able to use these products. “Female members?! What female members?!” seems to be the running joke on OzBargain, where many express disbelief sarcastically when hinted that there are actually female users on our system.

Our Facebook page statistics seems to agree as well.

Well. It does not look too bad, as there are just a bit shy of twice the males who “like” the OzBargain Facebook page than females. However, when you look at the number of people talking about OzBargain on Facebook, there are actually 3.5 times more young males (18-24yo) than females of the same age bracket (the gen-Y’s).

What does that conclude? OzBargain is dominated by its male members — not just in terms of numbers, but also in its opinions and its voice. I fear the domination here is so strong, that many female visitors do not even bother to sign up, to vote, to share or to join the discussions.

IMHO, it is actually a loss to the community. Personally, I have learnt so many saving money ideas from my wife and some female friends are the most vigorous bargain hunters I know. Without their contribution, OzBargain will continue to be in its little niche of cheap gadgets and making Ainol “that’s what she said” jokes, instead of benefiting the greater Australia.

Something needs to change!

How to make OzBargain more female-friendly?

To continue to grow OzBargain into a more balanced and diversified community, we need to make the site more female-friendly so women will be more willing to sign up and contribute.

Having no idea how to get started, I went to ask the question at SavvySME, a newly launched community website for the business kind. I asked, How to Grow a More Diversified & Balanced Community Website, pointing out OzBargain’s male-dominant nature. I got some vague answers. One said that I need to “find those pockets of people and give them a reason to come to your website”. Yeah right it’s like telling Gerry Harvey to find pockets of people happy to pay high price and bring them to shop at his store — it’s obvious but not very actionable.

Maybe, it’s just the design?

Then one day I had a bright new idea while browsing the latest deals on OzBargain (who hasn’t?!). By changing the design of the OzBargain website, it could create an environment that is more female friendly, which in turn would help OzBargain to be a more balanced community! Brilliant! I am an engineer after all who knows nothing about all that marketing fluff. Creating a new design however is at least more doable than “finding pockets of prospects and persuade them to signup”.

After a few days of testing out the new colours, let me now introduce you our new design — Pink.

It’s only a start, but here are some of the changes:

• PINK is now the primary colour. Most people are sick of the OzBargain Orange anyway.
• Comic Sans as the primary font will definitely bring out the vibrant side of the community.
• Love hearts on the OzBargain logo because we know how much you love it!
• Falling animated love hearts on the home page. Can you say bling?!
• New default avatar featuring My Little Pony-lookalike (well, until we figure out a more suitable, copyright-free avatar image)

I have briefly tested the new design with two female family members and they absolutely adore it!! (those are from my 6yo and 8yo daughters, btw). I have also shown it to my wife and she could not stop laughing which I presume that means she likes it.

That’s not all. More features are planned, gearing towards female members. For example,

• Cosmetics, Fashion and Shoes deals automatically get +10 after posting.
• Teaming up with other community websites such as Essential Baby and Vogue Forums, so female members can share their experiences across all the sites.
• Inviting celebrities and popular mummy bloggers to endorse the brand.

Stay tuned! That’s all I want to say. I believe this effort will eventually move OzBargain to a more balanced community, which would be good for everyone.

Any suggestions? Feel free to leave them in the comments.

We are  pleased to announce the winners of OzBargain’s 2013 Short Video Contest.  The last time we ran a competition this big was in 2008, in which XyleneFree won with her Ode to OzBargain video.  This time around we had 23 entries. After much deliberation, we have picked our top 4.  All videos are embedded in this page for viewing.

Let us know what you think.

1st

ElWircho

2nd

ovazealous

3rd

funkymonkeyman

4th

m0nkeycheese

Continue reading »

The Big Mac Index was created in the 80s as a simplistic way of calculating how much the exact same product (a McDonald’s Big Mac) would cost in other countries. According to the latest BMI, the most expensive Big Macs come from Venezuela,  Norway, Sweden & Switzerland.  Australia ranks in the middle of the pack with a Big Mac price only 12% more expensive than the US.

In a somewhat similar index, Kaiku has created an Ice Cream Currency Calculator indexing prices of ice cream globally. I’m not sure how Kaiku figured out the average price in each country but their premise is that cheap ice cream means everything else in the country will be cheap too.  Assuming the data is correct, the most expensive ice creams come from the UAE, New Zealand, and Sweden. This time Australia clocks in at around the 5th spot as having one of the pricier ice creams in the world. Compared to the price in New York, Australia’s ice creams are more than double in price.

We know that Australia has one of the highest costs of living in the world in addition to being expensive for tourists. There are a only a handful of more expensive countries in the world. On the flip-side, places like Malaysia have relatively cheap food prices. Combining this with an Air Asia deal, Malaysia becomes a reasonably priced holiday destination for Australians. Of course, if you want free ice cream, Ben & Jerry’s free cone day is April 9.

10 pictures for $10.

In the picture above are 10 images relating to deals, forums posts or stores on OzBargain. The first to correctly identify all of the images will win your choice of 1 x $10 gift card to one of the following stores (Amazon, Amazon.co.uk, Bunnings, JB Hi-Fi, iTunes, Skype) AND an OzBargain T-shirt. Feel free to send as many entries as you want. I will be giving clues during the week.

How to Enter:

Send a private message to me OR send us a message on Facebook OR direct message OzBargain Buzz on Twitter.

In the message, include your guesses for all 10 pictures. Please give us specific links or URLs in the guesses when required.

The following is what we are looking for in terms of answers:

1 – Location (Name of place) or Deal (URL).
2 – Deal (URL).
3 – Store (Name or URL).
4 – Deal (URL) or Location (Name of place).
5- Forum thread (URL)
6- Deal (URL).
7- Store (Name or URL).
8- Store (Name or URL).
9- Store (Name or URL).
10 - Store (Name or URL) or Location (Name of place).

Contest ends January 28, 2013 (12PM EST) or when a person correctly guesses all 10 images. If no one correctly guesses all 10 images by January 28, 2013 (12PM EST), we will select the person who correctly identifies the most images.

Update: For clarity, images 7 & 9 are 2 different images.

Hint #1: Question 10 seems to be tripping people up. Well, I took that picture myself in Melbourne and it’s never appeared on OzBargain. It was taken in Melbourne, is a store that has been around for a long time, and has multiple locations across Australia. Additionally, there have been deals posted for this store.

2012 was another successful year of bargains on OzBargain. Let’s examine some of the trends from 2012.

Deals:

2012: 19,032 Published | 3886  Front Page | 2,459 Removed Deals | Vote average: 16.74

2011: 15,234 Published  | 3665 Front Page | 2,616 Removed Deals | Vote average: 16.57

Published:  20% | Front page  5.6%  | 6.1% Removed Deals | Vote average: 1.1%

Removed deals decreased as we improved duplicate detection of deals, detecting keywords in the title for competitions, upgrading the identification of spammers as well as some other enhancements.

——————

Highest voted deal: Grays Outlet $10 Discount Code No Minimum Spend (Applies to Total Invoice Inc Shipping) +688

Store with the highest pageviews: Dominos  556,270 pageviews

Deal with the highest pageviews: Dick Smith Games Clearance 114,436 pageviews

Total deals per store (2010-2012)

The clear breakout winner is Amazon.com. The company is slowly increasing the variety of goods that can be sent to Australia from shavers to golf clubs.

Front Page deals (2012 vs 2011)

Store	Front Page deals	Rank vs. 2011
itunes.apple.com	237	-
dicksmith.com.au	154	1
amazon.com	146	9
bigw.com.au	130	2
woolworths.com.au	99	-
jbhifi.com.au	98	-
harveynorman.com.au	79	-
coles.com.au	75	4
amazon.co.uk	59	1
meritline.com	55	4
kogan.com	50	47
officeworks.com.au	49	3
greenmangaming.com	49	40
shoppingsquare.com.au	48	47
dominos.com.au	47	1
steampowered.com	36	6
shoppingexpress.com.au	34	101
zavvi.com	33	8
kmart.com.au	33	8
mygroceries.com.au	30	1

Despite the uptake in Android devices, iOS apps temporarily changing from a paid app to free remained the most popular deals.  The 3 biggest movers on the chart Kogan, Shopping Express and Shopping Square have dominated the deals this year in help from it’s competitive pricing of Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S III.  Both Amazon.com and Greenman Gaming experienced surges in popular posts due to very competitive pricing on digitally delivered video games.

Where did the popular retailers come from?

Gerry Harvey doesn’t have to worry as even the bargain hunters mostly do their shopping in Australia. While US companies increased their percentage from 8.5% to 10.7%,  it’s the emergence of other countries that has dropped Australia from 82.4% in 2011 to 78.1% in 2012.

Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page >2 times in 2012

Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page >2 times in 2011

Maps created using Gunmap.

Comments:

2012:  460,516 Published |  5,107 Removed

2011 : 360,633 Published | 4,639 Removed

Published 22% | Removed 9.2%

Top 5 Positively voted comments:

1. Gooddealmate commenting on Free Condoms +191
2. Flippant commenting on the new iPhone 5 from Kogan +124
3. viperrxz giving us a list of Grey’s items under $10 with free shipping +119
4. Visiontech rep defending the cost of his builds +114
5. blitz commenting on the Dick Smith game clearance +114

For more stats, see the wiki.

There is not long to go until the holidays are here. The crew at OzBargain have compiled a Christmas gift guide to assist you in finding gifts for your loved ones. We will constantly be updating this list up until December 25. The items listed are chosen by us with help from the community. Spot any good ideas? Let us know in the comments.
BONUS: If you can guess where this picture was taken (city), we will send you a free OzBargain t-shirt.
Update: Charlie correctly guessed that this Santa is from the Ala Moana Mall in Honolulu, Hawaii.
 

Films & Movies

Downtown Abbey Series 3 £19.60 (~$30) delivered Series 3 will not be airing in Australia until sometime next year, which means that the DVD will not be released in Australia until late next year. Why not get the whole series now from the UK?

My Neighbour Totoro – Blu-Ray + DVD £15.94 (~ $24.51) Delivered @Zavvi - For anime fans – My neighbour Totoro was released on blu-ray in November. The UK version is better value with both blu-ray and DVD.

Toy Story 1-3 Box Set on Blu-ray £16.08 (~$25) Delivered


Amazon.com $5 off $25

Police Academy 1-7 Complete DVD Boxset – $16.62 Delivered

Electronics

Olin 8-inch Digital Photo Frame $39 Officeworks

Sunbeam Cafe Espresso Machine EM6910 $498 BigW – save $200 – Online Only (plus $8 Delivery)

5th Gen Ipod Touch 32GB $298 Harvey Norman

iPod Touch 8GB White (4th Gen) for $129 / 16GB for $169 @ OfficeWorks

WDTV Live Free $50 Gift Card Promo (Valid with $99 Office Works WDTV Live)

Canon EOS 650D 18-55mm IS II Lens Kit $529.00 + $29 Shipping at Kogan

Map Presto Capsule Machine Now Only $49 @ HN

Modular Tetris Light $36 from EB Games – Normally $58.36

Books

Dr Seuss Box Set – $20 – for kids as well as nostalgic adults.

Jack of Diamonds – Bryce Courtenay – $24 @ Big W – Australian Author of best-selling books, Bryce Courtenay passed away last month due to terminal illness. His last novel is Jack of Diamonds, released Nov 2012  (RRP $45, $18.84 at BigW)

Couture Chocolate William Curley – $36.17 – Great for the foodie/chocoholic, this book won Cookey Book of the Year 2012 from the Guild of Food Writers in the UK. It contains techniques and recipes, but is also beautiful enough for the coffee table.

Cocktail Bible (850 Page Hard Cover) – $26.90 Shipped

Jamie’s (Jamie Oliver) 15 Minute Meals

Food

French truffles, dried porcini, vanilla beans, himalayan salt, gourmet oils and more! Perfect for the gourmet cook, you can order some really special products from Premium Gourmet Food that are not usually available in supermarkets. Shipping is $9.50 in Australia.
 

Video Games & Consoles

PS3 Slim Console 160GB and PS3 Gran Turismo 5 Bundle $248 (Save $137) @ BigW 8 Dec

WiiU Premium Pack $350 @ Toy’s R Us

Nintendo 3DS XL ~$225. Seen as low as $188

Xbox 360 Slim 4GB for $168 at Harvey Norman
 

Tablets

Google Nexus 7 $225 @ Mobileciti

iPad mini $358 @ Big W

ALDI Onix 7″ 16GB Android Tablet $99.95

10% Macs @ JB Hi-Fi

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7? $236 with free postage from Officeworks

EB Games – Toshiba AT100 32GB 3G — $208 (+postage)

Toys

20% off Any Full Price Item Toys “R” Us Online

Nerf guns @ KMart

Furby – $54 + Shipping ($10) Amazon.com

Uncle Milton Vintage Ant Farm $12 Delivered @ Amazon.com

Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo – $132 (Shipped)

$49 Aluminium Balance Bike @ Aldi – Fully Adjustable + Rear Suspension

Wooden Train Set 80pc with Table – $69 at Aldi

DELUXE 3D Baby Hands & Feet Casting Kit with Photo Frame $19.95 (+9.95 Shipping)

Nerf Vortex Praxis $11.98 Free Shipping for Order over $49 – Dealsdirect
 

Gift Cards

2x $20 iTunes Cards for $30 (Save $10) Delivered @ BigW

30% off All iTunes Cards at 7-Eleven

20% off The Iconic gift cards

Purchase $100 Gift Card for $101.95 and Receive BONUS $10 Gift Card at Westfield Gift Cards

Buy 1 Get 1 Free $20 iTunes Cards at Harvey Norman. Starts Today
till 17 Dec Free Delivery

iTunes 2 X $20 cards for $30 at Harvey Norman

Gifts for Men

Aldi’s gifts for men (shirts, boxers, suits, grooming kit and more)

Philips Norelco 1150x/40 2D Razor $64.10 USD or 46 3D Razor $120.29 Shipped from Amazon

Philips Norelco 1250X SensoTouch 3D Electric Razor shipped from Amazon for $100.97 USD
 

Beauty

GHD Scarlet Collection $152 – features the very popular GHD classic styler with red plates, a travel hair dryer, protective plate guard, hair sectioning clips and a heat resistant bag. (adapter plug required – cheap and easy from eBay)
Moroccan Oil Treatment 100ml $33 – $38 – this award-winning product is recommended by salons and getting rave reviews. It can be used for conditioning and styling hair, and is nourishing and suitable for all hair types. It is available on eBay for $36.50
Make-up/skincare travel sets – $28 onwards. You can get some nice gift sets such as Clinique, Estee Lauder, Lancome delivered from $28 onwards from Strawberry Net. Here’s their list of Christmas Specials
 

Still stuck?

For the person who either has everything or doesn’t want anything, how about remembering those less fortunate at this time? You can buy a goat or some chickens on behalf of the recipient to help fight poverty!

• Tear Australia
• Oxfam

Oxfam: A pile of Poo $15

• World Vision

 Delivery Cut-off Times

Target
Friday, December 7 for Perth, Darwin, Alice Springs, Far North Queensland and regional NT and WA
Monday, December 10 for Brisbane, Central and South East Queensland and regional NSW and SA
Tuesday, December 11 for Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide and all Tasmania
Friday, December 14 for regional Victoria
Saturday, December 15 for Melbourne

Big W
Friday, December 14 for small and standard size items (such as books, DVDs and small toys for delivery to metro and most regional areas.
For final delivery dates to rural areas or for large items check the BIG W website.

Toys R Us
Wednesday, December 5 for regional WA, remote Northern Territory and remote Queensland
Monday, December 10 for Regional & Perth
Friday, December 15 for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide

Kogan
Monday, December 17 for  deliveries to Eastern states for all Kogan branded products that are in stock.
The Kogan website will be regularly updated with expected dispatch dates for products from other brands

StrawberryNET
Monday, December 17 Registered post – Major cities
Monday, December 11 Registered post – Most areas
Monday, December 5 Registered post -Remote areas
Monday, December 10 Non-Registered post -Metro areas
Thursday, December 20, Express – All areas

Premium Gourmet Food
Thursday, December 20, Express

JB Hi-Fi
Monday, December 17, Metro Areas
Thursday, December 13, Regional Areas

DealsDirect
Monday, December 10: NT
Tuesday, December 11: Regional WA
Wednesday, December 12: Metro WA, Country SA, TAS
Thursday, December 13: Country QLD
Sunday, December 16: Regional Vic, Metro SA, Country NSW, Regional QLD
Monday, December 17: Metro Vic, Regional NSW, ACT, Metro QLD
Tuesday, December 18: Metro NSW

International:

Amazon US
Monday, December 10 for standard shipping
Sunday, December 16 for priority shipping

Amazon UK
Tuesday, December 4 for standard shipping
Monday, December 17 for priority express shipping

ASOS UK
Thursday, December 13 for standard shipping
Tuesday, December 18 for express shipping

Zavvi UK
Monday, December 17 for standard shipping
Wednesday, December 19 for express shipping
 

Some delivery dates sourced from news.com.au.

Summer is in full swing but don’t you wish you had a convertible to drive around in? No need to spend money buying one as repairloader has come up with a great DIY infographic to turn your regular car into a convertible with only a couple of tools.

Six years ago I reviewed an upcoming cashback + deal-sharing site. Buckscoop has a community of its own that’s a bit different from OzBargain’s, although it has been slowly dying over the past year. On the cashback side though, they still remain one of the better ones out there in terms of cashback rate (see our cashback sites comparison blog post). On OzBargain I usually recommend them alongside StartHere.

Buckscoop, however, announced a big change earlier this morning. Buckscoop admin, aka Donkey, posted this announcement at 3:44AM. Buckscoop is undergoing a dramatic change, to split into The new Buckscoop (listing deals, vouchers, freebies and sales discussion community) + Qwibble (cashback community).

+

Joining the team is Peter Wakim — ex-Quidco (UK’s largest cashback site, one of the first site giving back 100% aff commission). I have met Peter a few times this year, and this is the guy who knows cashbacks. The old Buckscoop site felt like it was built by the Quidco/HotUKDeals team in UK, and it was also hosted there. The new site might still have UK-built backend, but it is now hosted with ServersAustralia which is a lot faster.

Adir & Steve at StartHere.com.au definitely have a tough fight ahead. BucksBack guys might be not even in the league. A rough market indeed that I’ve seen a few small players dropping out over the years (for example, OzRewards, Cashloop and many others). However the market penetration is still lacking — comparing to UK, a lot of people here still have no idea about commission cashbacks. Majority of online merchants don’t offer it either. StartHere did well with a mass-media mention on Today Tonight to raise general awareness. We might finally catch up to the online shopping scene in US/UK?

(… or maybe not, judging from last night’s clickfail.)

Yesterday was supposed to be the glorious day where Google released their 4th generation Nexus Phone — Nexus 4 — on sale at their Google Play store (in AUD$349 for 8GB and AUD$399 for 16GB variants). At that price tag and top of the spec hardware (in comparison to other hero phones such as Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X and iPhone 5), it was expected to be a hot sale. When the latest Nexus-trio got announced at Google event 2 weeks ago, deal was posted on OzBargain and quickly got voted to 170+ votes.

However, the launch day sale was a bit of letdown.

Continue reading »

After reviewing 37 submissions for our photo competition about what it means to be an OzBargainer we have selected 3 winners:

1st Prize:

Baby & Toddler Sample Bag from Coles by Oanh.

Continue reading »

We receive over 2.5 million visits a month from search engines. It’s great to have people discover OzBargain when they are looking for a bargain or a discussion on a product. Unfortunately, this also leads to a number of people landing on OzBargain thinking that they have reached some retailer. Every day we get people emailing us via our contact form about all kinds of non-OzBargain related issues. This, despite having a warning saying you are contacting OzBargain, a community site. Some highlights from the past few months:

The confused:

Hi
I bought a tv last week and it is not working correctly I need to speak to
someone regarding this. Please give me a phone no or an e address where I
can send and receive messages thanks

The angry (caps lock included).

I CONSIDER YOUR ACTIVITIES TO BE PROMOTING PEOPLE WHO ARE CHEATING AND
RIPPING OFF UNSUSPECTING CONSUMERS AND STORING THEIR PERSONAL INFORMATION
WHICH EVENTUALLY YOU MAY USE FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.YOU HAVE NOT PROVIDED ANY
WHERE IF A PERSON WANTS TO BE DISASSICTED AND BREAK TIESA WHICH ALSO IS
HIGHLY OBJECTIONABLE AND SO THIS NOTICE THAT ALL MY INFORMATION STORED IN
YOUR SYSTEM BE IMMEDIATELY DESTROYED AS I AM INACTIVATING MY DEALINGS AND
CONFIRMATION BE SENT THAT ALL MY INFORMATION STORED IN YOUR SYSTEM HAS BEEN
DESTROYED.ANY BREACH NOTICED WILL BE SERIOUSLY VIEWED.

I am the Holder of two *redacted* Mobile ‘phones, but am at a loss to
understand what to do when a Voice Mail arrives at my ‘phones. Is their
anything special one has to do to access this facility, please??
I look forward to your response?

Never drink and bargain.

I wish to be taken off the regular home deliveries as I no longer drink.
Many thanks

I purchased a soup maker which has not arrived as yet. invoice id
R123456789. have you any idea when i can expect to receive it.
regards

I bought through ISelect 2 of your Bakers Roast Coffee makers. I have
tried one and find it most unsatisfactory. The brochure says you can share
a great coffee with a friend, but it makes only one proper cup, and the 2
suppled cups are tiny , suitable forTurkish or Greek coffees maybe. Also
the coffee was only a little more than lukewarm . I wish to return them
for refund by you, but need your reply, and address for return. Looking
forward to hearing from you shortly……..

Hello sir. I have some problem in my GPS.It’s unable to find most address in Brisbane Plz help me. What can I do now could you help me.tnx

Subject: Virus email.. WAS NOT FROM ME

Please don’t click link

Whoops. Too late.

OzBargain has gone from a blog to a user generated site and there is a growing trend for people to access the site via their mobile device. While 16% of our traffic comes from iOS devices, 7.5% of traffic comes from Android devices. This is more than double the amount from last year (3.4%). OzBargain maintains a mobile website that is compatible with mobile devices including Android browsers. Are there any advantages to using an app over the mobile website?

There are five free apps that you can access OzBargain deals. Note: All of these apps are unofficial. You can also access new deals through an RSS reader such as the Google Reader app.

OzBargain Free

• Quick access to new deals, popular deals, freebies, and search.
• Ability to search for bargains.
• Ability to view and reply to comments.

• Only the first 7 comments are shown (Unlimited in paid version).
• You can’t browse categories or forums.
• Can’t vote on deals and comments. (Available in paid version)
• Can’t submit deals.

Last Updated: Aug. 11 2012 – Google Play

BargainDesk AU Lite

• Can use a filter to show group buying deals, deals from other bargain sites and more.

• Can only view new deals.
• Can’t view comments, forum posts or categories.
• Can’t vote, post comments, deals, or forum posts.
• Can’t submit deals.

Last updated: Nov. 29 2011 – Google Play

Bargain Deal Alerts

• Works with OzBargain and a number of other bargain websites from around the world.
• Alerts you when there is a new deal.
• Share deals to email, Facebook and more within the  app.

• Can’t view comments, votes, forum posts, or categories.
• Can’t vote, post comments, deals, or forum posts.
• Can’t search.
• Only shows new deals.

Last Updated: October 10, 2012 – Google Play

 Australian Bargains!

• View new deals.
• Share deals to Facebook, email etc.

• Can’t search, view comments, votes, forum posts, or categories.
• Can’t vote, post comments, deals, or forum posts.
• Only shows new deals.

Last Updated: Nov 13 2011 – Google Play

Australian Travel

• Displays new travel deals that are posted on OzBargain.
• Displays other travel deals from sites such as Travelzoo.

• Can’t search,view comments, votes, forum posts, or categories.
• Can’t vote, post comments, deals, or forum posts.
• Too dominated with Travelzoo deals.

Last updated: Sept. 20 2012 – Google Play

Conclusion:

While OzBargain Free comes close in terms of usability, the majority of these apps are no substitute for using the mobile site.  It’s quite simple to add a bookmark to your homescreen (see icon on bottom left) but I wonder how many Android users know how to do this.  There a few things that an app would excel in terms of OzBargain.

Geolocation – Imagine opening up an app that would tell you where the closest bargains are around you. Restaurant review sites such as Urbanspoon and Yelp are a good example of location based search. Currently, OzBargain does not record location information in deals.

Deal Notification – Bargain Deal Alerts does notify you when there is a new deal. The paid version of OzBargain Free also notifies you based on deal criteria. Bundle notification with geolocation and your phone could act as an active bargain investigator.

Deal submission – Submitting a deal through a mobile phone can be a tedious task. Ideally an app would have a one click functionality similar to Share on Facebook or Send to Google Drive, that would upload the photo to OzBargain and make submitting a deal easy. You could go one step further and pull location information from the phone to select the merchant.

Do you use an Android app to access OzBargain? Let us know in the comments.

Buying a new phone outright is always a daunting task. The graph above shows prices (including shipping) for deals reaching 5 or more votes for the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S II, iPhone 4S and the HTC One X.

All of the above phones declined in price over time but the iPhone 4S did so in a smaller percentage. In a 4 month period, the iPhone dropped only 13% in price from $758 to $659. The SIII dropped 26%, the SII 23%, and 17% for the One X.

There isn’t an exact best time to buy but it’s clear that you should never buy a phone on release.  For the iPhone, buying it any time 1 month and onwards from release will net a similar discount of around 10%. Meanwhile, the S II, S III and One X demonstrated that after 4 months the price drops around 22% of the initial price. With the S IV rumored to be released in February or March 2013, we will probably see the price of the S III be between $400 & $500.