Big thanks to ShoppingSquare and RY.com.au for posting exclusive deals on OzBargain this week!

danilochan from ShoppingSquare is giving OzBargain users an exclusive coupon code to get free delivery on these 4GB MP3/MP4 players. The model numbers are “Pavo KL-219” and “Pavo KL-220” — one of those generic made-in-China MP3/MP4 players, but from the comparison picture with iPod Nano, they are tiny for a MP4 player with a sizable screen. Same thickness as iPod Nano (0.7cm), but quite a bit shorter.

Most importantly, you can buy them online at ShoppingSquare for $99.95 + free delivery ($9-$18 depending on where you live). Free delivery does not make much sense to me though as I actually live in the same suburb as Apus Auction/ShoppingSquare, but for those from Western Australia it can be quite a good saving.

Brad from ry.com.au (RY short for Recreate Yourself) is also offering 5% off Haircare Products using coupon code OZBARGAIN.

www.ry.com.au offer 20%-30% off salon brand haircare products, with this coupon code you get an extra 5% off too! ghd mk4 styling irons come down to $246.05 with this code. Postage only takes 2-4 days and they have phone ordering and salon pickup on the Gold Coast QLD.

Thanks mate! However I have absolutely no idea about haircare products. All I know is using shampoo and conditioner which my wife bought from supermarkets, and even my haircut is done by her. We are going to go to the Gold Coast next month for holidays though…

Okay now, why am I blogging these? Some of you guys might be thinking, “hey it is a cheap way of getting advertisement, those evil merchants!!!” After all free delivery and 5% off is not that much a discount when you come to think of it, however it is still better than nothing.

I guess I have thought through it a bit. As a consumer or a bargain hunter, the mentality probably should not be trying to screw the merchants to squeeze out their last drip of profit, so we can get the cheapest price possible. Or rather, how can consumers and merchants work together to bring the price down? This is why I am supporting services like MoneyBackCo, where the expense of advertising can be passed down to consumers as savings. Bad for other affiliates though, but I guess it is not the problem of either shoppers or merchants.

I will continue to feature exclusive promotions here, and see who else wants to sign up this type of “advertising”.

OO.com.au has a special promotion at the moment — Become An Instant Million-Air. Basically you just put your name and email addresses in to enter into the competition, where you can win:

• 1 million Velocity Points
• Two return flight to Fiji
• Six return flights to anywhere on the Virgin Blue domestic network

There is no “25 words why <blah blah>” to write. There is no game to play. You simply put your first name and email address there to partake in this competition. Moreover, for every family members and friends you spammed forward this promotion to, you will get an extra chance to win!

Honestly, winning fly points is pretty useless to me as I don’t really travel. I don’t mind having a free returned flight to Fiji, but that also means I need to buy tickets for all my families so they can travel with me. The best part of this promotion is, however, the $5 OO.com.au gift coupon everytime you put in an entry. Yup, free coupons by just signing up. Even more free coupons when you dupe in your friends.

Thanks to JeffreyM who posted this deal on OzBargain.

It is Sunday night, and time for me to summarise what has been happening at OzBargain again!

This is probably going to be the best deal of the week. Now you can get the award winning 24″ Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP for $778.80 delivered, thanks to agarner for posting this! It is currently advertised for $998.80 with gaming mouse + headset, but there is also a family and friends discount code available that can get you $200 off. Like what Duke has said in the comments,

The more inches the better ;) I’d get it in a snap if I had the money.

Yup. Me too.

Everyone frequent here would know that how vigorously PayPal’s marketing campaign is in Australia, from the special promotions via their merchant partners. Now, how about 23 PayPal related deals at the same time?! Thanks to JeffreyM who posted this, there are free deliveries and special discount from many of our favourite shops.

Another deal posted by JeffreyM is Xbox 360 Pro + Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas for $579 from Myer. It is really a great bargain consider Xbox 360 Pro by itself would set you $600+. Offer until 4 July 2007 or stock last.

It has been a busy week at Dick Smith Electronics as well, as we have quite a few deals posted about them this week. Personally I think the biggest should have been their One Day Mega Sale with their in-store promotion, today only. Too bad that it did not get enough votes to get onto the front page, and it is all too late now. From this thread at Whirlpool, looks like quite a few people got in early and had got themselves a bargain — at least 15% off Apple Macs.

Then there’s also this weird deal from DSE as well, thanks to NishaM. Free Sandisk 1GB MP3 player with HP C3180 multi-function printer. Very good deal, and from the comments it is not an exclusive DSE deal, but a cashback-like program directly from HP. The RRP of Sandisk MP3 player is actually higher than the price of the printer — so go and buy yourself a printer, if what you really want is the MP3 player.

There are more deals posted each day. There are currently a few subscription options to keep you up-to-date with the latest deals in Australia. Subscribe, and save!

Thanks to Deals Direct who posted this deal on OzBargain, where you can get $20 free voucher when you spend $100 or more and pay with PayPal.

Promotion starts on 22 June 2007, and ends on 30 June 2007. You must pay via PayPal. One voucher per customer, and the voucher will be sent via email 1 week after the promotion expires.

Pretty good deal if you do spend that much at Deals Direct. Moreover, you can get 5.5% moneyback from MoneyBackCo this month, as we have reached the tier that gives us back more commissions!

A few weeks ago “Jimmy” sent me an email about his website — JimmysDeals.com.au, which is another bargains website that collects deals, coupons and special promotions. From its about page:

When you sign up to Jimmy’s Deals, I will pop by and visit you weekly in your inbox, armed with the top deals and coupons that can be found on the web.

I know how important it is for you and your family to get the most value for your money. My goal is to make your life easier by being your free resource for valuable coupons, discounts and special offers handpicked from your favorite brands and stores.

Hey, that is exactly what I am trying to do here. Oh wait, it is not true. At OzBargain, you (the bargain hunters from all over Australia) do the work, and I just sit back and enjoy all the savings. Moreover, we rarely have any exclusive deals.

Indeed, I think what sets Jimmy’s Deals apart is his collection of exclusive deals. The structure of his website is pretty simple and straight forward. You have Deals Category on the left hand side of the pages, and when you click into a category, you are presented with a list of shops in alphabetical order. There are usually coupons and promotions listed under each shop. Just click on the name of the promotion, coupon code and associated expiry date will be revealed.

So I clicked into the “Computers & Electronics” category, and saw Are-Jays have some exclusive coupons listed. Take this for example:

Pretty good deal, isn’t it?! Too bad that is has already expired, but there are heaps of exclusive coupons on that website, many are still valid. Many are giving you special discount which you won’t find elsewhere.

Now, what is the catch? As I have posted here previously, one thing to ask when you spot a bargains/deals site is — why are they running it?

Well, it did not take long to find out because “Jimmy” has been honest and explained clearly in his How It Works page:

So whats in it for Jimmy?

JimmysDeals.com.au is an affiliate marketing web site. In a nutshell, this means that when I refer a customer to one of the sites I list and they make a purchase, I am compensated with a small commission from that sale.

Basically when you click on a link to actually go to the merchant to use the exclusive coupon code provided, you will head over to affiliation networks like clixGalore and CommissionMonster first, and have your transactions tracked so “Jimmy” can get a commission on anything you buy from that shop.

Is there anything wrong with it? Hmmm personally I think it is one legitimate reason for making a website. After all he is doing the hard work negociating exclusive coupons with retailers, and surely he deserves his wages. However, as a shopper I will just grab the code, and head over to MoneyBackCo so I can get the discount as well as my commission back :)

Getting a kick back is not the whole story though. If you are a retailer, does not want to join an affiliation network, but would like to be featured on Jimmy’s Deals — you can!! “Jimmy” is happy to feature your coupons, deals or offers at $250/month or $2,500/year. Hey, I wish I am “Jimmy” as I am making bugger all on this website.

Now, how is this “Jimmy” guy anyway? From his MySpace page (yes, he has a MySpace page!!), we know that he is a 24 year old Magna-driving male living in New South Wales and likes to wear green T-shirt. However, WHOIS look up on both JimmysDeals.com and JimmysDeals.com.au reveal the same person, but his name is not “Jimmy”. Or maybe it is James?

Last week we had OzBargain on Twitter. Maybe this whole “Web 2.0” thing is just too “out there”. This week, our mate MiCCAS.net has created a Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget for OzBargain — something you can run inside your desktop, and it will grab the latest deals on OzBargain and display on your side bar.

If you haven’t heard already, OzBargain is a wonderful collaborative website in which consumers and customers come together to upload and download offers, from all around Australia.

I’m a member, and in attempting to assist both the community that accesses the website and Scott, the developer of the website, I’ve decided that I would create and release a free Vista gadget for the website.

Thanks mate! I think it would be useful for those who do not want to have the whole RSS feed reader running all the time.

Now, the only problem is — I don’t have Windows Vista, so unfortunately I cannot test it out on my desktop. Gadgets are zip files so at least I can see what it is trying to do. It also happens to run on Windows Live (which again is another service I don’t use). As I am too cheap to buy a computer for myself, I have to wait for my current work laptop to die to get a new Vista laptop.

Honestly, I love to build web services API more than bargain hunting (shocking!!!) and there are already many ways to extract data out from OzBargain which I have not yet bothered to document. Any good API suggestion?

Until then, Hasta la Vista!

Some of the top deals posted this week.

Myer: Australia’s Biggest Stocktake Sale, thanks to JeffreyM for posting this.

As a MYER one Member, we’re delighted to extend an invitation for you, your family and friends to attend a very special Stocktake Sale Preview Event on 19th June 2007. Be the first to make your choice from the amazing selection of bargains and offers across some of your favourite brands and products!

The Preview Event takes place before the sale begins, so be prepared for a great choice, even greater offers plus special Preview Event offers including your chance to win a $10,000 Myer Gift Card.

Looks like to be a great event.

Where can you find the cheapest 2GB iPod Nano? Turns out to be Harvey Norman, where you can get one for $174 in their latest sale. Thanks to geforcemmx for posting this. There is a twist in the comments though — if you go to JB HiFi, they will be happy to match HN’s price for you.

Now, how rare it is that the banks actually give you some real cash when you sign up their product? MoneyBackCo has secured some affiliation opportunities with some financial institutes, and now you can actually get good moneyback when you apply for a MasterCard or sign up a saving account at BankWest! How much? $40. At MoneyBackCo first!

There are also some free shipping deals.

• Free shipping at SeekBooks (thanks to Sooty)
• Free shipping at OO.com.au for Velocity Members (thanks to KTM)
• Free shipping at Deals Direct with PayPal (thanks to… hmm it’s mine)

There is another PayPal promotion for June — dStore.com.au $15 voucher for orders $60 or more. We have quite a few of those dStore promotions before. In fact I will only buy from them with these promotions because their regular price is actually not that good.

Okay. Last deal for tonight. Big thanks to Chang from Yogee.com.au who has given us an exclusive 10% off offer everything at his online shopping mall. Yup — that is exactly the kind of advertisement that I don’t mind talking about. There has been some companies posting their company home page with no bargain what so ever. There are also online shops posting, pretending to be satisfied customers, and created multiple accounts trying to jack up the votes. DO NOT DO IT, and you will get your posts removed in no time.

Instead, please post some real bargains. Or better, just like what Chang has done, create an exclusive deal just for us.

That’s all folks. Good night!

Being someone who is still “trying” to understand Web 2.0, I thought the easiest way is just to use what is cool and hip out there. After the South by South West earlier this year, it appears the hippest app that everyone ought to try out is Twitter, the Ruby on Rails powered micro-blogging web-based application initially created by Odeo, founded by this guy who also created Blogger.

Well, but what does that have anything to do with bargain hunting in Australia?

You see. Bargains and deals are something that is time-sensitive. You do not want to discover the sales 2 days after it is finished, do you? Moreover, sometimes they are very time-sensitive. Some special promotions are only available for a day or two. Many on-sale items are limited by quantity. You don’t want to click through the link to discover a SOLD OUT written across the page, do it?

At OzBargain, new deals got discovered everyday, and some are indeed very time sensitive. There are a few subscription options available — daily email or RSS feeds. Daily email is obviously out — specials posted at the beginning of the day is likely to have sold out before the next dawn. RSS is not bad, although its pulling nature usually results up to 30 minutes of delay. Keep on refreshing the New Bargains page? Not a good idea either, unless you like to foot my server and bandwidth bill :)

And that is where Twitter comes in.

For now, every new deal posted on OzBargain will also post a short message + link on Twitter. That means, if you already have a Twitter account, you can:

• Make OzBargain your friend.
• Receive notification from Twitter whenever a new deal is created on OzBargain!

OzBargain @ Twitter

There are currently a zillion apps that are developed on top of Twitter to help you track your Twitter friends on any possible devices. Moreover Twitter supports SMS and IM notifications out of box (AIM, Jabber and Google Talk). I am a Jabber user (use my personal email address as my Jabber ID to contact me!) so I can get instant notification whenever a new deal is posted!

For more detailed instruction, see my forum post at OzBargain. Oh yeah. Give it a try, and I know you want it! Moreover you will be cool and hip like all other Web 2.0 nerds entrepreneurs.

Big thanks to yingtzee for posting this great deal at OzBargain yesterday. Big W is having an end of financial year sale, from Thursday 14 June to Wednesday 27 June. Normally companies and business took this opportunity to buy things and claim them as expenses during tax time. However you might need to exercise a bit of “creative accounting” to claim these great deals as “business expense”…

First of all we have Nintendo Wii reduced to $348, way below anyone else in price comparison. Moreover, there is also a 40% off all Wii games (except the ones released after 30 May).

Very nice deal for the family fun! Oh wait, gotta think of something as business expense…

If you are like me, who has never owned a game console in his entire life (okay, I have a deprived childhood), then maybe even this PlayStation 2 can keep you entertained for a while — and it is now reduced to $166 at Big W! I know it is old, released back in 2000, and I could not even find its price comparison at ShopBot, but there is a huge selection of games at dirt cheap price. You might even be able to pick up a few games from neighbour’s kids for free.

Hmm. Cheap consoles. I wish I have time to play games.

By the way, at work we have a new Xbox 360 connected to a big 42″ plasma TV in the kitchen. Obvious we don’t do any work but play games on it. Not sure how it works out in the accounting department…

I had some issues with Dell affiliates last month. Basically, I found some nice Dell coupons, and have posted them on OzBargain. I tried to bring more visitors on these coupons using Google Adwords, but was rejected due to trademark issue. However, Dell continues to advertise on the Google’s network through its affiliates. At the end of the article I concluded:

What I find annoying is that some cashback/moneyback communities like MoneyBackCo do not get approved by the affiliation network to access these Dell commissions. Otherwise we will see an all year round 1.5-3% cashback on all Dell products — and thats what I will call the Dell Deal.

And the good news from Steve @ MoneyBackCo is — we have been approved! You can now get 3% moneyback on Dell consumer or business products! That deal is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — there is no special coupon code to enter, nor do you need to be family or friends of a Dell staff — just head down to MoneyBackCo and they will get the deal for you.

Now we have both Apple and PC covered, what else I wonder?

Got this email today from our friends at Daily Deals:

Catch-A-Thon #6 Starts Midday 13th of June. Don’t Miss Out!!!

Then I looked at my watch — hey, it is already 13^th of June, but it is only Wednesday! I thought Catch-A-Thon is starting this Thursday?! I went down to Daily Deals’ site again and it was indeed showing Wednesday 13^th June. However the next Wednesday 13^th June is in year 2013! I don’t want to wait 7 years for the next bargain fest at Daily Deals! Or maybe they are operating in a different time-space dimension, but hopefully it will emerge with our reality by mid-day tomorrow.

From experience there will be lots of good deals at Catch-A-Thon. Like last time, my prediction would be:

• It will be extended to 48 hours, i.e. ends mid-day Saturday the 16^th.
• Catch-A-Thon #7 will be around mid-July, as they are running it almost every month now.

Tune to Daily Deals tomorrow to see whether it is indeed happening.

Seriously, I have been asked by shops and websites in Australia to talk about their sites every other day here. Sorry to those whom I have not been able to reply, as it is not really my policy of reviewing every sites that come through my inbox. I do have some advertisement space though (banner + button on CPM — check the advertise page), if it something some of you guys are thinking.

However, the best way to advertise your shop/service on OzBargain is actually sending us a deal! To do so, you need to

• Sign up an account at OzBargain.

  Please use a username that clearly resemble your business name, so that the other users will know that it is submitted by a shop/merchant. We hate dodgy viral marketing practise, and never ever pretend to be a customer recommending your own shop/product.

• Click on the Submit link to submit a deal or a coupon.

  The best way would be giving us a special coupon code with ozbargain in there. Yes we love exclusive deals, and I for one will definitely bite if it is something special.

At the end day, users of OzBargain get a good bargain from your shop, and you get the same effect of banner ads — flood of traffic in the buying mode. (However I cannot always guarantee that though, if your deal is not a bargain at all and gets buried by the users.)

Well, jules from Direct Art Australia has done just that. Yesterday he posted a coupon on OzBargain, giving users 15% off discount on the entire range of 100% hand painted oil painting in store. Sorry I am not really an art person so I probably can’t appreciate it as much as those who have better taste than mine. However still a big thanks for making an exclusive offer for us.

Steve of MoneyBacoCo wrote on the OzBargain Forums,

We’ve finished! The website upgrade.

Additionally we’ve reduced the cashout fee from 2.7% to just 20c, and you can now choose a direct bank transfer rather than being limited to just PayPal, you can add a bank account and change your “Payment to” in your preferences (see the top of the page when you’re logged in) and don’t worry, we use a secure connection (https) so your details are safe.

Great stuff. Just in case you are not aware, OzBargain is currently in partnership with MoneyBackCo to deliver affiliation commission back to the community, and you should hopefully see more integration between two sites in the coming months.

Just a few things that I feel that I need to clarify. MoneyBackCo charges two fees — a $10 per year membership and 20 cent withdrawal fee. You only pay the membership fee if you earn more than $10 per year on moneyback, which is quite easy (a $1,599 MacBook from Apple would get you $43.20 moneyback for example). However MoneyBackCo does offer one of the best moneyback rate out there — 100% back from affiliation network. (I used to say that MBC gives THE BEST rate but Cashloop whom I reviewed here is now also on 100%).

Another thing that I think that wasn’t explained clear in all moneyback/cashback sites is, the percentage moneyback applies to ex-GST amount. I guess what is government’s still belongs to government, and the merchants themselves are only receiving the ex-GST amount in the transaction. The data coming back from the affiliation network also does not include the GST. That means:

• A 3% cashback from Apple is acutally 2.73%.
• A 6% cashback from OO.com.au is actually 5.45%.

Because it is 3%/6% moneyback over the 90.9% (ex-GST) of the total amount of the transaction. Not sure how it works in other parts of the world, but at least in Australia, we are stuck with it.

1-Day.com.au is the latest 1 day/24 hour deal site in Australia. Instead of one single deal everyday for 24 hours, it gives you 3 deals every day. Moreover, the cycle starts at 10am AEST each morning, instead of weird hours like 12am which compels people to stay up late at night.

1-Day.com.au is part of of Torpedo7, a New Zealand-based company selling bicycles and parts online. The website is even hosted in Auckland with a quick look up. I guess it does not really bother me a bit which side of Tasman Sea it belongs to, as long as they have an .au website and is easily accessible by the Aussies.

Now, it is good to see new deal sites keep on popping up, although one such site, Snap It Up which I reviewed last year, has since ceased operation. After all, it is a lot of hard work running 1 day deal sites that need to push out new deals every day 365 days a year. But not just perseverance, you also need great products at a price that no one else can beat. Has 1-Day.com.au got it?

Take today’s deal for example — 5km range Walkie Talkie for $59, video Baby Monitor for $129 or Dickies Work Shorts for $34 — they are definitely well priced. However, I won’t say that those products are “desirable”, which is critical to those 1-day sale sites. Most people hang around Zazz at around 12am to buy things, not just because “hey, it is cheap”, but also “hey, I want that, and it is only available for 24 hours!”.

Another important feature that Zazz and One Item have, but sites like 1-Day.com.au and Catch of the Day don’t is a community. An online business with a well-managed community not just build customers, but build loyal followers who will bring even more customers.

1-Day.com.au does have some unique features though. For example, when you go into product’s page, and you will see a horizontal bar showing the “Live Remaining Stock” which is pretty cool. It shows how likely you are going to get the very last bargain, and it also shows how hot an item is, from how fast it has sold during different hours of the day.

Anyway. The site is new, and it seems to bring in good bargains. I know where I will tune in at 10am every morning.

Any Apple users here? Anyone got an iPod? Any Mac zealot reading this bargain blog? To be honest, I have never owned an iPod. I did have a Mac though, a 4 year old second generation iBook G3 that runs Panther, and my wife still uses it as her main computer.

However I do recognise that an Apple is probably the hottest property a geek can possess. After all, who wants to use a PC anyway? As Apple has just released the latest MacBook Pro with Santa Rosa platform, maybe it would be good to evaluate where one can buy cheap Macs.

MoneyBackCo 3% MoneyBack

MoneyBackCo is having 3% moneyback on Apple products. Well, not exactly on Apple products, but everything you buy from the Australian Apple Store.

I know Steve has been chasing up these deals for a while so congratulation! It is offered through DGMAustralia to approved publishers. To get the 3% moneyback, you need to:

1. Get yourself a MoneyBackCo account if you haven’t.
2. Go to Apple’s page on MBC.
3. Click on the link at the bottom of page to go to Apple Australia.
4. You will get 3% moneyback in your MBC account on the amount you spend at Apple Store – GST.

Cheap Resellers

Apparently Apple is not the only one in town that can sell Apple products, as there are many authorised resellers. Many simply set the same price as Apple’s RRP, but some are passing on good discount to consumers.

Price comparison engine would be useful here, and a bit of search on Shopbot reveals quite a few resellers doing big savings over Apple’s RRP. For example,

• iPod Nano 4GB (from $259 vs. $299 from Apple)
• MacBook 2GHz (from $1,572 vs. $1,599 from Apple)
• iMac 24″ 2.16GHz (from $2,750 vs. $2,999 from Apple)

Do note that many resellers don’t include delivery cost, whereas Apple’s price includes delivery. Also you need to be careful with deals listed on these price comparison sites — some dodgy shops might not have stock at that price and want to sell you the same thing at a higher price.

Education Discount

samsoft24 posted a link on Apple education discount at OzBargain. I am fully aware of Apple’s education discount to students, teachers and academic staffs in K-12 schools, universities or TAFE colleges, and it is about the only reason for me if I ever want to go back to school (argh I hate exams and assignments).

Basically you enter into Apple Store using a special landing page, select the school/university/colleage that you are in, and you will be bounced to your school-branded Apple store with discount on almost every Apple product — well, except for iPod and Apple TV and some accessories. For example:

As you can see, there is quite a lot of discount which really makes Apple computers “affordable”. You need to be either a student or a staff member in order to qualify the EDU discount. Or, you are buying on behalf of your kids who is currently attending higher education.

Apple Certified Refurbished Products

If you don’t mind something “as good as new”, then Apple Certified Refurbished Products store, posted by John last week, might be a good alternative. They run clearance sales every now and then, and they are very cheap — to a point that you felt you are buying from that dodgy seller on eBay. But don’t you worry! All products sold at Apple, even refurbished ones, carry Apple’s 1 year warranty.

However, the obvious problems are

1. They don’t usually have the model you want.
2. Sometimes they are at least one generation behind.
3. The RRP price listed is when the product was sold “as new”, maybe 6 months to 1 year ago.
4. Refurbished is not new.

There are bargains to grab, and refurbished iPod can be substantially cheaper. You do need to be quick though, as the quantity is limited.

Shop Overseas

And guess what — the best way to save on Apple products is probably buying overseas. Duncan was wondering about the same thing as well — Mac Pro was so much cheaper in US than here, even if you factor in the GST. There are probably a billion reasons for the price differences (tax, hedging, economy of scale, etc). However the end result is the same — it sucks to be an Aussie shoppers.

Two cheapest Apple online stores are probably the US and Hong Kong stores, and I know Apple has international warranty on notebooks. Maybe put that into your overseas trip agenda. Or maybe you can ask your uncle in the States. Or you can use many services that let you shop in stores that only deliver to US addresses, and they will handle the delivery to Australia for you at a cost.

Summary

There is only one thing to remember — DON’T just browse into Apple Store (or walk into your local Apple Centre or Next Byte) and pay the recommended retail price. I did that when I bought my first iBook, but I don’t think I will repeat it again. Shop around, and there are many legitimate ways to get a cheaper Mac.