At church last Sunday and in one of the sermon illustrations, our pastor joking said that one of the reason to have children is that you can now find the excuse to buy the toys you always wanted. Yes for those of us with kids we all know how TRUE this statement is! Too bad that I kept on asking my daughter whether she is interested in a Nintendo Wii, but at her age (turning 4 in a few days) she is more interested in a bicycle than a Wii…

Nevertheless, the annual Toy Sale at Kmart, Big W and Target can still get me very excited. Every year they promised to be bigger and better, and we can definitely see that in the new websites they have bought out!

Kmart Super Toy Sale

Kmart now has a direct link to their new toy sale site — Where Good Times Start that currently has nothing but two flash games. The bold notice at the top reminding us how many days left before the super toy sale starts on 3^rd of July, and the sale will run for 2 weeks.

Never mind the music. The catalogue is not even available online yet, but you do get an opportunity to surrender your email address for the latest updates. But wow — a dedicated website for the toy sale. This gotta to be big.

Big W Toy Sale

Big W also has a flash animation on their home page (with a fancy count down timer) that links to their Toy Sale page. Not as fancy as Kmart’s (where’s my flash game to win prizes?!) but at least they already have their Toy Sale catalogue on their Lasoo powered site — all 132 pages of it! I actually loves Lasoo powered catalogue sites, because

1. Lasoo allows you to rebrand and sits on your own sub-domain, which makes categorisation easier at OzBargain (we group deals by linked URL)
2. Search works. If someone said, “hey that Wii in the latest Big W Toy Sale is cheap”, you won’t need to flip through all 132 pages to find it.
3. Individual product pages with images + selectable text. Very important for submitting to OzBargain.

“Our Biggest Toy Sale Catalogue Ever!” — from 3 July to 16 July.

Target Toy Sale

Target toy sale always happens after both Big W and Target. Great timing as well — as it’s very close to my wife’s birthday. Let me see what sort of toy should I get for myself, hmm my wife I mean.

Starts on 24 July but the catalogue won’t be available until the end of this month, and again email address is needed to get a sneak preview.

I am sure a lot of highlights will be picked up by the OzBargain members and will be posted on our community site over the next week or two. Where do you plan to do your toy shopping?

Thanks to rhys for notifying me about this evening’s A Current Affair, where some of the best online deal websites are featured. Especially Catch of the Day and Deals Direct. Note that Deals Direct has already been on ACA before, but the growth of CotD over the last 2 years is really remarkable. Looks like they have been slightly above Zazz over the last 6 months according to Alexa traffic ranking. Well done guys!

Under the category Best site for freebies and vouchers listed a site that I had a quick review back in April — Bargain Sniper. Now, why is this site the best for freebies and vouchers is beyond me. Or maybe those in ACA/NineMSN can enlighten me about who can get to be featured — because I don’t mind the traffic it brings!

At around 7pm AEST my server, which usually pushes out traffic at around 300kbps at that time of the day, gets a traffic spike at as much as 2Mbps! It turns out that Bargain Sniper’s hosting company, Jumba, suspended their hosting account (due to traffic spike I presume). As my review page came out as #2 on Google’s search result page on “bargain snipper”, everyone came to this blog instead! Over the 2 hour span I am getting around 4,000-5,000 page views at this blog, which is around 20 times what it would normally get.

So here is my congratulation to the Bargain Sniper guys for making onto the national television. It would be interesting to see what do they have in store when the door re-opens tomorrow.

Thanks to shosho who pointed out in this thread, OzBargain has just been named as Website Of The Week by Anthill, an magazine for the small business and start ups.

The average bargain is usually only valid for a few days, but there are enough posted on OzBargain every day to keep you coming back. I’m hooked. Check it out. You might even stumble upon an Anthill bargain or two…

Indeed. Anthill found us from their bargains posted on OzBargain. From the article:

We stumbled on OzBargain after one of its members stumbled on Anthill’s secret subscription offer and posted it for all the world to see. After scratching our heads, playing cat and mouse with them for about ten seconds and then shaking off a vague feeling of violation, it dawned on us that this was actually a brilliant website. We laid down our weapons.

Thanks for the recognition! When merchants found out that their deals have been posted on OzBargain, there are usually two different responses —

1. “How dare you?! That was supposed to be the exclusive deal! Where’s the phone number to the lawyers?!”
2. “Brilliant! Another vehicle to promote my product, and this is already a well targeted bargain hunting community!”

Guess which one I had to handle this morning? A bank called the affiliate network that I have not really been using (but I have this blog associated with the account there), and that affiliate network called me to pull down a nice deal posted a few weeks ago because it “contains misleading information”. And I complied, which you can see more discussions here. Haven’t we sent you enough new customers, Mr. Bank?!

Oh well. But those in Anthill definitely know their stuff — they are in the position of advising small business — because they know how much an online community can do for them. Looking forward for more subscription discount from these guys, because I think I might become a subscriber myself.

This is a continuation from web hosting bargains part 1, where I looked at some issues with choosing a web hosting provider. Finding the right host at the right price for your website has always been the case of caveat emptor. You need to understand and estimate your own needs, and then find the hosting company that is the best fit with technology, server location, support/management and budget..

For example,

• You are going to build a community website using open source scripts, e.g. a phpBB forums.
• Since you are too cheap to pay for advertising, there will be maybe 10-20 users/day at launch.
• You have no problem using FTP to install the script, and you can use cPanel to set the site up — but that’s about it. No command line stuff.
• $10/month is at most you are willing to pay.

Hmm. Pretty much standard stuff and most hosting companies should be able to handle these requirement. But which one?

Continue reading »

I am on holidays on the Gold Coast this week so you probably won’t see me much on OzBargain. I am still trying to check out the site every now and then just in case there’s a riot happening :) This evening I actually managed to create a Facebook Business Page for OzBargain. So now you are now only be able to vote for deals right inside Facebook, you can also become a fan and tell us how much you love this website! :)

Another way to share a good bargain with your friends on Facebook is by using the “Share” button on the deal pages (it will be right below the main content).

See you on Facebook!

It is 2008. Everyone and their dogs and cats can haz websites. If you are selling something or providing services, and if you do not have an Internet presence, you don’t exist. It is one of the easiest ways to get yourselves known by the world, and if you cannot be linked to at OzBargain, we don’t want to know you :) Not just business websites, people have their personal websites, blogs, family websites, photo galleries, and Internet entrepreneurs have their network of sites. They all face the very same issue — where can I find good deals in web hosting, that are cheap, reliable and scalable when my business grows.

Over the past year and half there has been many domain and hosting deals posted at OzBargain, mostly under the Internet category. Some are well received, but some got heavily criticised and voted negatively. I think “hosting” is probably a controversial topic, as a lot of people actually don’t know what a “bargain” is. Neither do I actually, most of the time, but since I have been running a few websites (include a few webhosting related), I might be a bit more qualified.

So the question is, “I have a few websites that I would love the world to see, what’s the best bang for the bucks out there?” It won’t be a comprehensive guide, but I will try to look at different aspects on finding a bargain for your next website.

Continue reading »

Hasn’t it often occurred to you that why things are so expensive in Australia? Even when you factor in the 10% GST, the shipping cost, the distribution cost, etc it is still far more expensive buying gadgets in Australia than from Hong Kong, Singapore or the US of A, especially when AUD to USD exchange rate has been hovering above $0.90 for the last two months. Looking at all the deals posted at SlickDeals or FatWallet is almost suicidal (yeah, you really wish to kill yourself). Like these deals posted at ProBargain Hunters — 46″ Philip High-Def 1080p LCD TV for around $800 AUD?! Shoot me now please!

Not only are we missing out all the nice deals, many are actually inaccessible to us Aussies because merchants in US won’t post overseas nor accepting overseas credit cards. I really wanted a PayPal Mastercard, but even that won’t guarantee online stores to make the delivery across the Pacific.

Price USA comes to rescue.

Price USA is like a mail forwarding service (for good comparison, check this post at Never Shopped Out) but it takes care everything for you, including ordering the goods, receiving and forwarding it to Australia. It is an Australian company based in Victoria, and it charges you

1. Item price
2. Delivery cost to their US agent
3. Delivery cost from US to Australia
4. Order fee of AUD$10 or 5%, whichever is more

As for (1), searching through US-based deal sites and coupon sites will get you great price, and Price USA can even do rebates for you. You can also find many online stores can deliver to US addresses for free so (2) is eliminated. Price USA uses USPS with no additional charges for packing or handling so (3) is minimised. I think for (4) it is really fair and very competitive when you compare with other mail forwarding services. At the end it means — great bargain for us Aussies!

Continue reading »

OzBargain has just received its very first legal threat! This is what happened.

Yesterday (23 April) at around mid-day I received an email from a “Senior Project Administrator” of a construction company (that shall remain nameless for now). The subject says “Your posters on our <construction site>” (somewhere in Sydney CBD). To paraphrase the email and turn it to point form:

• “your company” has placed “your poster” on “our construction hoarding” without authority.
• “your company” has discarded “our notice” of unauthorised usage, and is subjected to prosecution.
• “your company” needs to remove the posters immediately by the end of business day today.
• failing to do so, “this company” will take action to prosecute “your company” for all the cost and damages, plus recovering the legal cost.

Continue reading »

With the Mother’s Day coming up next week, shops everywhere have started offering special promotions, and PayPal too has recently released their latest merchant offers. Top picks? TopBuy and OO.com.au free delivery.

TopBuy is currently running a PayPal special —

Free shipping for any orders over $100.00 paid via Paypal. Plus receive a mother’s day free watch and jewellery gift set worth $49.00 on our site and RRP $199.00.

Offer ends 7 May 08. Conditions apply.

However for this weekend only, you don’t really need to use PayPal nor spend over $100 to get the free shipping, thanks to this coupon code posted by rhys. By celebrating their 50,000th order, they are giving out free delivery for the ANZAC Day long weekend when you use the coupon code FS50000. Camera and camcoder categories excluded.

OO.com.au is also offering free delivery via PayPal until 30^th of April, thanks also to rhys for posting this coupon code on OzBargain. Use PPFREE4 at check out for free delivery up to $30. Or alternatively you can use this coupon code posted by POWERevolution (MUM1) to get mum a free bonus gift.

Now, we all know that merchants have always used public holidays as incentives to get you to shop. After all celebrations always seem to be associated with shopping. However not every public day was set up for celebrations. For example Anzac Day — you wouldn’t “celebrate” Anzac Day with your own 99c 40cm Aussie flag, would you? :)

A new feature that has been added to OzBargain over the last couple of days — Store Representatives. Basically there are two types of people posting on OzBargain —

1. Consumers/bargain hunters/cheapos who have found a bargain.
2. Merchants/shop owners/service providers who want to promote their own products or services.

In order for us to correctly identify members from category (2) in the process to resolve the self-promotion issues, I would like to call on every merchant who is promoting their own deals on OzBargain to apply for the Store Representative status.

What Are The Benefits?

So if you are a merchant/shop owner/service provider, what benefit do you get if you have the Store Representative status?

• You are the official representative on OzBargain for your store. You are automatically more authoritative, and our other members will look up to you for answers.

• You get a small icon next to your name on the deals that you have posted against your store. Our other members and visitors can immediately see that this deal is posted by the store reps.

• Your store will be listed on our store profile pages, with your user name listed under Representatives.

There might be other benefits in the future, but I won’t promise anything yet.

However, a “rep-posting” earns no extra favour from our members. A bad deal will still be voted down regardless whether it has been posted by a store representative.

How to Apply?

If you have been posting special deals on OzBargain and would like to apply for the Store Representative status, you need to:

1. Log in to your OzBargain account.
2. Go to the Contact page, change the drop-down box to “Store Representative Application”, fill in required data, and “Send e-mail”. I will need:
   • Who are you representing?
   • A short blurb about your shop that will go into the profile page.
   • If you are not using your official email address (name@<your store>.com.au), I will also need one from you to verify.
3. You should be assigned the Store Representative status within 24 hours.

Another nice thing to have is to apply for a Gravatar, as OzBargain uses Gravatar to power its profile image. You can put up your company/shop’s logo there to make your representative status more obvious.

TechCrunch reports Alexa has overhauled its ranking system to use more sources than just its toolbars. There has been big shifts in the Blogosphere where many webmaster-centric blogs suffer a dip. On the other hand, many sites that are not Internet/web design-related actually get a boost in Alexa ranking. For example yesterday OzBargain was around 96,000+ for 3 months average, and now it is hovering around 55,000+.

I am now waiting for Yan to update all his monthly deal sharing/coupon site rankings, in light with the new Alexa data :)

On the topic of website ranking using Alexa, there is this interesting discussion thread on Whirlpool Forums, where “back-to-school” asks “Which bargains/freebies/coupons sites have you visited in last 12 months?”, and listed out 5 top bargain sites in Australia according to Alexa data, with one obvious omission, i.e. OzBargain (thanks to Neil who quickly raised this issue :)

Well, I won’t write yet another long article on who back-to-school, Skippy99 and a few other users on Whirlpool are (or is?), but now with Alexa using extra sources, it is actually quite possible to find out who are the top bargain sites in Australia.

As of 18 April 2008 at 1:30am AEST. Others like Dealicous and Bargain Sniper are not listed as they do not yet have an Australian ranking. I am sure there are other sites but it is too early in the morning and I am too tired to think properly.

But the question I would like to ask is — is that an accurate presentation on how popular a site is? I am afraid to say that the updated Alexa ranking is still far from being perfect. One measurement I usually look at is the amount of activity, if it is a community site/forum. If we are just counting the number of posts, then Buckscoop would be far more popular (or their members are more vocal).

Number of current online users is also a metric for measurement, and I think over 15 minute interval is pretty much universally accepted — except on average each OzBargain visitor is only staying for less than 3 minutes (and will be more for forums, much less for blogs).

At the end of the day, all these comparisons are probably not that useful but amusing nevertheless. Maybe I shall do what Yan does for ProBargainHunter.com by ranking bargain/coupon sites every month, except an Australian version. They can be easily automated with AWIS calls. Anyone interested?

Sydney Morning Herald: eBay to accept cash and PayPal only, and this story has generated quite a lot of discussions everywhere. While it does not really impact me as I don’t really live on eBay, may I borrow the words from the infamous Jedi Knight — “I flt a great disturbance in the Force… as if millions of eBay sellers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.“

Indeed. You pay once to have your goods inserted into eBay’s listing, you pay the second time when you sold the item, and now you will have to pay the third time when you receive the payment, if it is not a cash on delivery/pickup deal.

You do understand eBay’s motivation though. After all its job is to create a convenient market place and to provide maximum protection to the buyers… Oh wait, maybe they just want to maximise their profit. After all these eBay related deals, PayPal still haven’t caught up with wide-spread usage in Australia. Fine — they do what the monopolists do. How about making PayPal the exclusive payment method in one of the largest Internet marketplace?

As a buyer it does not make too much difference — yet. PayPal is convenient, and I love to have payment confirmed as soon as possible for quick delivery. But over time we will gradually see sellers adding cost to their price, especially low-margin products like cheap Chinese imports.

Is this the beginning of the end for eBay? Or is there any viable alternative?

I spotted this site the other day, and it is yet another bargain/deal website for the Australians — Bargain Sniper. Yet another one?! But the truth is, bargain/deal sites are far from saturated in Australia (when you compare the same niche with sites in US), and there are always new bargains waiting to be reported.

Bargain Sniper appears to be still in beta, according to its about page. It’s first deal was posted in mid-February so it has only been in existence for 2 months, although the domain appears to have been registered for longer. Bargain Sniper appears to be operated by the same guys from Computeck, a computer hardware wholesaler/distributor, and the sites are hosted at Jumba. Unlike other deal voting sites in Australia that are developed using Pligg, Bargain Sniper was developed using Drupal — same platform that OzBargain builds on! Good choice mate!

Bargain Sniper actually has a pretty nice design with round corners, shades, drop shadows and everything (designed by the Russian folks here). That’s miles better than OzBargain which I hacked up in text editors :) Meanwhile the implementation took the standard Drupal route, where submitters can create nodes using various “node-types”, i.e. deals, coupons, freebies, etc. At the same time they are using phpBB to power their forums. While phpBB 3 is far more advanced than Drupal’s build-in forums, it does make this section feel disjointed from the Drupal part of the site.

Well. That is my first impression of this new site — nice looking design, good choice of platform, but it somehow does not feel complete due to its beta-ness. Looking forward to share bargains with these guys.

Updated 12/06/2008: Many people searched “bargain sniper” and landed on this page from around 7pm AEST today, which subsequently killed the real bargain sniper site (which now shows “This Account Has Been Suspended”). No idea why there’s a sudden interest?

Yes I have been obsessed with the ASUS Eee PC. It has nothing to do with my 3 1/2 year old — it was me who wanted to play with the small ultra-portable notebook. In fact I have bought one in early February — almost $450 delivered from eBay for a slightly used Eee PC 701 with 512MB memory, 4GB SSD and loaded with ASUS-modified Xandros Linux distribution. I pretty much reformatted the SSD and installed eeeXubuntu a few days after I got it so I can update to some of the latest software and development toolkits.

Despite its low amount of memory and lack of “disk” space, I have to say that it is one of the most useful device I have bought — ranked all the way up there with my old Psion 5mx. I used it during the church retreat at the Easter weekend to type up all the notes (as well as connect to the conference centre’s open Wi-Fi to make sure OzBargain was still alive during my 4 days away). Beside super convenient, it also has that Wow-factor when people walk pass by.

With the recent announcement of Eee PC 900 series, the 701 series has really came down in price — you can now easily get one for less than $450 when you shop around, far cheaper than its release price of $499 back in December 2007.

And thanks to danilochan from ShoppingSquare for posting this deal, ASUS Eee PC at ShoppingSquare is now even cheaper! With coupon code C29C99 the 701 4GB can be yours for $399 + $24.50 delivery, brand new with 1 year manufacturer warranty! That is even cheaper than the retail price in Taiwan, where Eee PC was designed. And in China, where Eee PC was manufactured, the cheapest at the moment is 2750 Yuan (reference here), which is still more expensive than AUD$399.

Well done ShoppingSquare!

Too bad that I have already bought one but I know a few who would love to take the leap.

TopBuy.com.au got a face-lift earlier this month. To celebrate their new website (which do look pretty good), they are offering a coupon code that gives you 10% off discount for items site-wide. Thanks to MiCCAS for posting this deal.

Coupon code is 2628030810off. No PayPal required. Offer expires end of 28 March, i.e. less than 24 hours to go. There is another offer at the same time, relating to their new website, but only you hit a page that no longer exists. It gives you a $10 discount coupon for orders $100 or more.

The expiry date is unknown.