OzBargain Zeitgeist 2016 : Top Stores, Deals and Comments
neil on 10/04/2017 at 9:00 am, filed under OzBargainLast year, we reported our amazement on Dick Smith, our most popular store, going into administration. Kogan bought Dick Smith’s website in early 2016 which resulted in 63 front page deals for the year, down 19 places from the #1 spot last year. Unfortunately, Masters suffered the same fate but still managed to place 11th with 129 front page deals.
We welcomed six stores into the top 25: EverBuying , EB Games, eBay , ALDI, Banggood & Amazon UK. We noted for the past couple years that there is a distinct relation between the number of deals and the currency rate. While the US dollar didn’t move too much, the British Pound dropped making purchases from Amazon UK much cheaper. In the graph below you can see when the GPB was most expensive (1st line) that deals were close to 0. Compare that to the low (2nd line), which resulted in a high amount of Amazon UK deals.
Amazon UK Deals
Front Page deals (2016 vs 2015)
| Store | Front Page Deals | Rank vs. 2015 |
|---|---|---|
| Woolworths | 255 |  1 |
| Amazon.com | 232 | 5 |
| The Good Guys | 216 | 8 |
| Harvey Norman | 193 | 1 |
| Target | 184 |  2 |
| IWantThatFlight | 177 | 6 |
| Coles | 175 | 3 |
| JB Hi-Fi | 158 | – |
| Big W | 145 | 3 |
| Amazon eBooks | 135 | 7 |
| Masters | 129 | 3 |
| Officeworks | 98 | 3 |
| Myer | 91 | 5 |
| Dominos | 84 | 2 |
| Super Cheap Auto | 74 | 12 |
| Dan Murphy’s | 74 | 3 |
| eBay | 69 | 24 |
| Bunnings | 69 | 8 |
| EverBuying | 65 | 154 |
| Dick Smith | 63 | 19 |
| Amazon UK | 60 | 99 |
| EB Games | 59 | 33 |
| ALDI | 58 | 8 |
| Banggood | 58 | 6 |
| Groupon | 58 | 3 |
Note: Front Page threshold moved from 20 to 25 in April 2016.
Deals
| Year | Deals not reaching Front Page | Front Page Deals | Vote Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 11590 | 3641 | 16 |
| 2012 | 15148 | 3851 | 16.31 |
| 2013 | 21043 | 5084 | 17.63 |
| 2014 | 22975 | 5989 | 20.94 |
| 2015 | 21498 | 7085 | 24.66 |
| 2016 | 23329 | 7576 | 28.12 |
Stores ranked by # of deals posted
| Store | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon.com | 19 | 151 | 550 | 800 | 887 | 526 | 749 |
| Woolworths | 107 | 164 | 259 | 465 | 630 | 671 | 706 |
| Harvey Norman | 107 | 248 | 330 | 506 | 464 | 550 | 654 |
| JB Hi-Fi | 161 | 269 | 371 | 462 | 496 | 515 | 621 |
| The Good Guys | 32 | 77 | 140 | 233 | 359 | 411 | 607 |
| Target | 65 | 123 | 132 | 452 | 440 | 600 | 592 |
| Coles | 154 | 211 | 224 | 407 | 502 | 416 | 470 |
| Big W | 123 | 425 | 390 | 416 | 413 | 516 | 450 |
| Myer | 47 | 114 | 95 | 150 | 265 | 273 | 373 |
| Masters | 0 | 8 | 20 | 104 | 162 | 286 | 352 |
| Officeworks | 124 | 206 | 194 | 377 | 248 | 386 | 350 |
Notes: eBay is excluded due to many deals that were from retailer’s eBay stores (e.g. Officeworks, The Good Guys). Platforms like iTunes & Google Play Store were also excluded.
Where did the popular retailers come from?
Australian stores increased by over 3% while China including Hong Kong increased to their highest level in history.
| Country | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUS | 155 (82.4%) | 168 (78.1%) | 187 (74.5%) | 179 (70.45%) | 184 (72.44%) | 191 (75.79%) |
| US | 16 | 23 | 31 | 45 | 36 | 26 |
| UK | 10 | 11 | 15 | 9 | 8 | 9 |
| HK | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| China | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 7 |
| France | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Italy | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| New Zealand | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Cypress | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Sweden | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ireland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Malaysia | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Netherlands | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Singapore | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Austria | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Brasil | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Canada | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Philippines | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Romania | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Germany | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Israel | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Japan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| UAE | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Switzerland | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Russia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Data consists of the top 250 stores ranked by # of front page deals.
Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page (Top 250) in 2016
Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page (Top 250) in 2015
Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page (Top 250) in 2014
Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page (Top 250) in 2013
Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page (Top 250) in 2012
Deals by Country: Retailers that made the front page (Top 250) in 2011
Maps created using Gunmap.
——————
Most Popular Deals
Most Clicked Deals
Fastest Deals to the Front Page
Fastest Deals to 100 votes
Most popular deals by category
Most clicked deal that didn’t reach front page
- 20% off TVs, Laptops, Smartphones, Samsung Phones/Tablets, 5% off Apple and 10% off Bose @ Dick Smith (10764 clicks)
-
Most neg’d deal
- Samsung Galaxy J1 (Unlocked) for $199 Shipped @ Mega Tech Warehouse (-15 votes)
-
Most commented deal
- Free Annual NRL Digital Pass Subscription- NRL Fantasy League Creation (3371 comments)
Store with the highest pageviews
| Store | Pageviews |
|---|---|
| Dominos | 1,481,254 |
| Hungry Jacks | 187,183 |
| Woolworths | 182,776 |
| Uber | 164,595 |
| KFC | 154,667 |
| Secure Parking | 128,167 |
| eBay | 103,387 |
| Virgin Australia | 83,778 |
| Menulog | 80,996 |
| Masters | 68,908 |
Deal with the highest pageviews
Competitions
Most Popular Competitions
Most Clicked Competitions
Competition Pageviews: 2,911,006
Comps Posted: 4800 | 2015: 3406
Comps Won: 1257
Biggest Competition Win:
A Trip to Rio to see Olympics Worth $25,000
Forums
Most Popular Forum Threads (pageviews)
Users & Comments
2016 vs. 2015: Published: 966,436 11% | Removed: 11,857 1.21% (2015: 1.11%)
Transparency and the ability for people to express their opinions on a variety of topics is something we take as a priority. Our comment removal rate has always been around the 1% mark and to break it down even further 36% of comments removed were by request of the person making the comment and a further 22% are replies to those comments. Personal attacks and resolved comments are part of our goals of 2017 to making OzBargain a more respectful community while reminding users to contact moderators about any issues.
Reasons:
- Replying to Deleted Comment – 4290 (2015: 3080)
- Requested by Commenter – 2635 (2015: 1688)
- Personal attack 515 (2015: 476)
- Inappropriate use of negative vote 496 (2015: 474)
- Duplicate – 469 (2015: 507)
- Referral Links/Codes/Solicitation- 442 (2015: 448)
- Inappropriate – 397 (2015: 362)
- SPAM – 371 (2015: 427)
- Sockpuppeting/Astroturfing – 107 (2015: 124)
- Ghost Account 96 (2015: 288)
- Selling in Comments 322 (2015: 379)
- Trolling 131 (2015: 154)
- Resolved 676 [Comments asking for title/description to be fixed/move to forum etc.] (2015: 687)
- Everything else – 920
Most Comments by a User
| User | Comments | Avg Vote | +5’s | +15’s | -5’s | -15’s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spackbace | 8660 | 1.53 | 764 | 120 | 46 | 10 |
| jv | 8315 | 0.63 | 749 | 146 | 489 | 84 |
| altomic | 4275 | 2.08 | 465 | 94 | 14 | 3 |
| Diji1 | 4171 | 0.72 | 278 | 49 | 150 | 20 |
| Clear | 4149 | 0.96 | 186 | 22 | 15 | 2 |
| easternculture | 3392 | 0.24 | 215 | 34 | 166 | 35 |
| scrimshaw | 3125 | 1.81 | 310 | 63 | 7 | 1 |
| KaptnKaos | 3082 | 1.09 | 234 | 52 | 65 | 15 |
| Savas | 2846 | 1.23 | 214 | 45 | 46 | 7 |
| dragonindespair | 2771 | 0.68 | 114 | 18 | 22 | 3 |
Top 10 Positively voted comments
| Comment | Votes | User | Posted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uhhh… Those are balls. | 618 | Bargearse | 2016-06-18 |
| A kid | 343 | altomic | 2016-11-07 |
| Uni graduate soon (21), | 340 | StewBalls | 2016-10-31 |
| 5) I have no tattoos and | 339 | tomsco | 2016-11-24 |
| I know it was a NZ coin | 311 | Ughhh | 2016-08-16 |
| I don’t see a need to ban | 269 | bonezAU | 2016-04-21 |
| “I think it’s an investment | 265 | ranap | 2016-10-31 |
| Gearing means borrowing | 254 | mskeggs | 2016-05-20 |
| You’re a ghost and no one | 237 | Drew22 | 2016-08-19 |
| Let’s not ozbargain this for | 237 | rakeycakey | 2016-01-11 |
Top 10 Negatively voted comments
| Comment | Votes | User | Posted |
|---|---|---|---|
| I think it’s an investment | -350 | chickensaltfrie | 2016-10-31 |
| I’m sure most people have | -182 | bottletop | 2016-08-16 |
| Lazy post. As much as we | -177 | Phreakuency | 2016-12-25 |
| I like 40% | -155 | aussman | 2016-11-24 |
| HIgh yield not in term of | -155 | chickensaltfrie | 2016-10-31 |
| No one would sustain a | -144 | Multiverse | 2016-01-14 |
| Ridiculous! Might be a good | -137 | spludgey | 2016-03-28 |
| No bargain…..prices need | -129 | PLANT | 2016-12-18 |
| Just get a PO box and move | -124 | Laurenlauren | 2016-01-18 |
| Do you believe in KARMA… | -122 | saggy | 2016-02-19 |
Top 10 controversial comments
| Comment | +Votes | -Votes | User | Posted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your father is an | 43 | 43 | Diji1 | 2016-12-08 |
| Loser identification | 41 | 41 | StewBalls | 2016-09-16 |
| Apprecaite your effort but | 35 | 36 | Maki | 2016-07-18 |
| I will only affix these | 28 | 29 | KaptnKaos | 2016-04-30 |
| Caged eggs… Don’t buy… | 26 | 26 | DrDollar | 2016-12-30 |
| Damn, combination of | 25 | 26 | BlazinPast | 2016-09-04 |
| They’re too busy in the | 24 | 22 | montorola | 2016-09-03 |
| Lots of money and obviously | 23 | 23 | dosada | 2016-10-20 |
| How about Iraq , Syria , | 22 | 20 | easternculture | 2016-08-25 |
| I thought we already | 20 | 20 | BlazinPast | 2016-11-02 |
Comments with a net vote between 2 and -2 where the comment has 6 or more positive votes.
Top 10 VERY controversial comments
| Comment | +Votes | -Votes | User | Posted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yeah, they read “CAUTION, | 38 | 41 | cryptos | 2016-04-30 |
| Apprecaite your effort but | 35 | 36 | Maki | 2016-07-18 |
| Nice take the spot right in | 34 | 28 | Limitless | 2016-06-11 |
| For people who are not | 33 | 30 | Make it so | 2016-02-15 |
| I will only affix these | 28 | 29 | KaptnKaos | 2016-04-30 |
| Damn, combination of | 25 | 26 | BlazinPast | 2016-09-04 |
| Ladies and Gentlemen, | 24 | 28 | Bearosaurus | 2016-09-03 |
| They’re too busy in the | 24 | 22 | montorola | 2016-09-03 |
| How about Iraq , Syria , | 22 | 20 | easternculture | 2016-08-25 |
| Somebody please neg this | 20 | 18 | StewBalls | 2016-03-28 |
Comments with a net vote of + or – 20% with positive vote count of 10 or more.
Most Deals Posted by Users
| User | Deals | Avg Vote |
|---|---|---|
| Spackbace | 659 | 34.58 |
| TRENT86 | 615 | 50.56 |
| tightarse | 577 | 119.24 |
| lyl | 563 | 61.62 |
| nocure | 515 | 43.50 |
| easternculture | 497 | 37.86 |
| monty.melb | 476 | 30.87 |
| altomic | 414 | 16.90 |
| Jimmy007 | 383 | 20.15 |
| tonester | 314 | 18.77 |
Most Deals Posted by New Users
| User | Deals | Avg Vote |
|---|---|---|
| Currybender | 93 | 27.67 |
| stuhtb | 77 | 25.56 |
| PR0r | 64 | 48.31 |
| doweyy | 44 | 52.89 |
| koalafied | 38 | 38.32 |
| Cshomes | 35 | 4.66 |
| sbrulz | 34 | 22.50 |
| Sp Sukhy | 33 | 20.91 |
| Jamesph | 30 | 20.87 |
| MiniInTheBox | 27 | 10.63 |
Most Competitions Posted by Users
| User | Comps | Avg Vote |
|---|---|---|
| Katie2014 | 1171 | 5.60 |
| gnv9 | 994 | 5.36 |
| JSQUARED | 575 | 4.73 |
| neil | 401 | 4.31 |
| hamza23 | 254 | 10.97 |
| Spackbace | 183 | 10.74 |
| altomic | 114 | 2.77 |
| Wyza | 47 | 2.47 |
| Gunwalls | 40 | 1.12 |
| Thespottedcow | 38 | 4.24 |
Most Front-Page Deals posted by a User
| User | Deals | Avg Vote |
|---|---|---|
| tightarse | 573 | 119.97 |
| lyl | 391 | 82.81 |
| TRENT86 | 354 | 77.18 |
| nocure | 276 | 68.61 |
| Spackbace | 205 | 82.61 |
| easternculture | 179 | 83.46 |
| monty.melb | 153 | 71.51 |
| hamza23 | 114 | 76.35 |
| IWantThatFlight | 96 | 72.07 |
| scotty | 81 | 71.06 |
Most Front-Page Deals posted by a rep
| User | Deals | Avg Vote | Comments | Comments (Not OP) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IWantThatFlight | 96 | 72.07 | 314 | 19 |
| monty.melb | 44 | 81.64 | 843 | 134 |
| Clear | 33 | 68.97 | 4180 | 2609 |
| tightarse | 23 | 216.65 | 1735 | 656 |
| banggood | 18 | 108.56 | 78 | 0 |
| boratsagdiyev | 15 | 152.40 | 43 | 21 |
| MyGroceries.com.au | 14 | 61.21 | 24 | 0 |
| Masters AUS | 12 | 102.58 | 108 | 48 |
| sellingoutsoon | 9 | 40.89 | 421 | 64 |
| poolspa | 7 | 49.14 | 41 | 0 |
Most Edits by Power Users
| User | Edits | Uniques |
|---|---|---|
| Spackbace | 3197 | 2910 |
| Baysew | 920 | 893 |
| tonester | 465 | 411 |
| shapers | 283 | 259 |
| O O | 199 | 158 |
| Steptoe | 186 | 170 |
| Make it so | 151 | 140 |
| Lukian | 126 | 118 |
| BarginHunter | 108 | 102 |
| fchis | 106 | 99 |
Moderation Stats
Reports from users: 29,701 (2014: 24,414). Average 1 report every 17 minutes.
Deals Removed/Published: 4,743 (13.33%) /30,911 | (2015: 4,514 (13.63%)/28,583) — Forum Posts Removed: 797 (5.85%)/ 12,818 | (2015: 615 (5%)/11673 published)
- Reasons:
- Duplicate – 2153 (2015: 1937)
- Sockpuppeting – 361 (2015: 293)
- Requested by OP – 389 (2015: 378)
- SPAM – 306 (2015: 368)
- Insufficient Quantity – 231 (2015: 192)
- No Bargains Listed – 259 (2015: 157)
- Referral SPAM – 245 (2015: 170)
- Combine Posts – 103 (2015: 90)
- Expired on Posting – 68 (2015: 53)
- Not Available to Australia – 122 (2015: 83)
- Unobtainable deal 52 (2015: 16)
- Deal doesn’t meet eBay posting guidelines 44 (2015: 29)
- Out of stock on posting 44 (2015: 32)
- Price matches are not bargains 38 (2015: 29)
- Ghost account 33 (2015: 23)
- Amazon eBook posts are not allowed for associated users 32
- Circumventing Ban – 32 (2015: 38)
- Banned Item – 31 (2015: 48)
- Deal isn’t a valid bargain 29 (2015: 50)
- Incomparable Service 22
- Competitions are not bargains 17 (2015: 11)
- Everything else – 984
Other Stats
Top 5 most popular wiki pages by traffic (in pageviews)
- List of Birthday Deals/Freebies – 113,590
- List of Cheap Chinese Online Buying sites – 43,127
- American Express Referrals – 39,662
- Cards with No Overseas Transaction Fees – 19,195
- American Express Shop Small Guide– 18,273
Top 10 most subscribed to stores
| Store | # of subscribers |
|---|---|
| I Want That Flight | 577 |
| American Express Cashback Offers | 248 |
| DeliveryHero | 238 |
| American Express | 248 |
| Specsavers | 183 |
| Pinchme | 118 |
| Masters | 116 |
| eBay | 116 |
| Menulog | 116 |
| Woolworths | 110 |
Top 10 Search Alerts
| Query | Count |
|---|---|
| lego | 159 |
| eneloop | 145 |
| sonos | 134 |
| dyson | 130 |
| ps4 | 116 |
| amex | 112 |
| specsavers | 109 |
| bose | 91 |
| japan | 85 |
| qc35 | 80 |
Pageviews: 339,018,660 ( 12.61% )
Sessions: 108,432,172 ( 12.53%)
Browsers: Chrome: 58.65% ( 4.3%) , Safari 24.78% ( 0.14%), Firefox 8.35% ( 2.62%), Internet Explorer 3.63% ( 5.05%), Safari In-App 1.84, Edge 1.44%, Opera 0.46%, Android Browser 0.44%.
Top Referral Traffic (Sessions): Whirlpool 1,425,530 Facebook 1,415,441 Twitter 432,607 Oursteps 412,583, Lifehacker 260,153
Freebies posted: 2616 (2015: 2641)
New Users: 24,922 (2015: 25,673) Total: 167,275
For more stats, see the wiki.
2016 Stats: Jan – Feb – Mar – Apr – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – Dec