Thanks Shan from Melbourne for sending me more special discount vouchers! Let me check out what we have here.

First we have Kmart 15% off Team Discount for team member & family (PDF download 264kb). That’s 15% off everything on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 8-10 December. It does not include electronics like TV, game consoles, iPods, etc.

There is also a 10% Off Target Discount Voucher for team member’s family and friends. This one actually starts tomorrow — from Friday 1 December to Sunday 3 December. Again, you need to download the PDF (396kb), print them out, cut off the voucher, and bring it along with you when you go shopping! It only says “Excludes Gift Cards” so I guess game consoles and iPods are okay?

Shan also sent me some other discount vouchers — 30% off from Marcs (233kb PDF), 30% off from Morrissey (313kb PDF), and 30% off from Ralph Lauren (140kb PDF) from Friday 24 November 2006 to Sunday 3 December 2006, i.e. only a few days to go. Probably not the kind of shops I’ll be shopping at, but some of you might be interested.

Again thanks to Shan, the shopaholic+bargain hunter :)

dStore is giving away 1000x AUD$20 vouchers. FREE, with some conditions of course.

We’re Giving Away 1000 x AU $20.00 Vouchers FREE!

Get AU $20.00 off your next purchase on dStore when you use Pay Pal as your payment method.

Just fill up the form to become dStore member (or your password if you are already a dStore member) to claim the voucher, and then use it in your next purchase. You also must use in conjunction with PayPal. First 1,000 customers only, and it must be used before 31 December 2006.

I won’t say dStore has the cheapest CD/DVD in town, but who cares when you can get $20 for nothing? :) I think I am going to get a Pixar movie for my daughter — plenty of them under $20.

Update: Alright. Just bought the “Incredible” DVD from dStore. Listed price — $19.95. Delivery — $5.95. So at the end paid $19.95 + $5.95 – $20 = $5.90 for the DVD. Without the voucher it would be cheaper to buy from Kmart (which is on special at $15.99).

Free delivery of LCD TVs are back! OO.com.au were only running it 3 months ago, and now — as the cricket season is coming — they are offering free delivery on their entire LCD TV range again. For today 28 November and tomorrow 29 November only.

I’ve not seen much variation of LCD TV prices from OO from the last few months. Still great price, and if I want to buy from them I’ll pick it up from their warehouse which is just 10 minute drive away. However free delivery might be useful to those who live in other states than NSW.

Just let me blow my own trumpet here. I am here officially launching OzBargain.com.au, one of my “other” websites in development. It’s been in development over the last month, and some strange voice tells me that it is now ready to see the public. Do note that little green “Beta” at the top of the logo though — so be gentle and don’t break it :)

What is it?!

It’s a replacement for the old Bargain Blog forum, which is currently suspended. It’s more over community driven — people are encourage to submit and share the great bargains and deals they’ve found, and discuss them. All newly submitted deals appears in the New Bargains page. Moreover, users can vote on deals to push them onto the front-page. Or a list of most popular deals over the last 30 days. Hopefully with community effort, great deals will become more visible. What a great idea!!

Alright. It’s nothing new. Think social bookmarking services like Digg or Reddit or even the new Netscape. There are also thousand plus one implementations for bargains and deals like dealspl.us, Dealspy, Dealigg, Trezr or even RetailMeNot which I reviewed yesterday.

Except there’s nothing dedicated to the Australian shoppers. Hence I went ahead and did my own.

Continue reading »

I first read about RetailMeNot.com on DownloadSquad late last month, but I did not pay much attention. “Yet Another US-Centric Coupon Dump? No thanks” I thought.

Then today Bevan emailed me about this website again, and convinced me to take another look, because:

• It’s collaborative — people love to share good things with complete strangers online, and I can testify it from this blog :)

• It’s from the maker of BugMeNot, one of the most useful application on the net that get you through stupid registrations.
• It has got over 1,900+ diggs. And we all know Digg users are always right :)
• The main developer is actually an Aussie! That alone is worth mentioning.

So, what is RetailMeNot?

Many online stores allow for a “coupon” or “promotion” code when you order to automatically assign discounts, deals and freebies (kinda like money for nothing). RetailMeNot.com is a place for finding and sharing these coupon codes. So… when you buy online, check here for discounts first (unless you’re frikkin crazy).

The most useful aspect of RetailMeNot is, just like BugMeNot, its bookmarklets. Go online doing some shopping, hitting the checkout button, click on the bookmarklet, and it will popup a window showing all the discount coupons for the current site you are shopping on. All coupons are submitted by its community, and can be rated whether they work or not.

Although there’s strong Aussie influence on the development side of RetailMeNot, the majority of coupons are still US based. There are however some coupons for the Australian sites, which are tagged australia. Nothing particular interesting at the moment (except the Dell AU coupons), but it will definitely be a page to visit often.

Our reader Shan shared with us the “Myer team members, families and friends Christmas shopping offer” that she has received.

Myer members, families and friends Christmas shopping offer (PDF, 699kb)

Basically, for Sunday 26 and Monday 27 November 2006 only 2 days only, there’s big discount from Myer to its “team members” and their families and friends. Here’s a sneak preview:

• 25% off womenswear/menswear/miss shop/intimate apparel
• 30% off childrenwear/footwear
• 30%-40% off furniture
• 25%-40% off fashion accessory
• 10% off fragrances
• 25%-40% off frames and stationeries
• 30% off cookware/kitchenware/table top
• 30% off towels/bedlinen/bedroom accessories
• 15% off food
• 20% off toys (exclude nursery, computer games and consoles)
• 30% off books
• 10%-15% off electronics
• $10 off of every $100 spent on game consoles
• $5 off of every $50 spent on CD/DVD

And if you purchase an Apple computer from Myers (they should be the same price as Apple Store), you’ll receive Mac Office for free.

Now, how to claim the “families and friends” discount. From the PDF file:

Families and friends who do not hold a team member discount card will need to present a copy of this letter when making purchases and the normal team member discount will be applied to the purchase in addition to any of the special offers or other purchases made.

So — print it out and go on shopping tomorrow!

Just a quick update on this blog. Quite a busy week with a few updates.

We are moving again!

Thank you Jumba! You have served us well. Price is cheap, server is usually fast, and this site seems to be up, most of the time. Definitely one of the best budget shared hosting — and they are now having 25% off sale with their old plans before they bring out new plans later this year.

However I just love my new VPS at GPLHost so much that I just have to move this site there. The server is still in Sydney, having MCI/Verizon network. It’s quite a bit more expensive, but should have enough capacity with my other projects.

Things you should know about advertising on OzBargainBlog.com

Quite a few people asked about advertisement on this blog over the last couple of weeks. Yup. I know it is a bit crowded with AdSense ads and text link ads, but they do pay for my excessive habit of getting web hosting accounts.

At the same time I do not wish to be “another salesman” for so and so company. I am writing here because I happen to be excited about cheap items you can buy and all that money you could save. It has nothing to do with building my own web content empire so I can earn million dollars from Google and sell all my sites for billion dollars to AOL.

So, back to advertisement. I wrote a page on it. Have a read before contacting me about it.

No more forums!

I’ve disabled the link to the OzBargainBlog forum. It is still there, but I’ve disabled all new postings.

Why?

I’ll be launching a new site for the Australian bargain hunting communities (if such thing exists). Soon’ish. I’ll post about it here soon’ish as well. It will have forums in there, which supersedes the forums here.

Stay tuned.

Fax?! What is that?! (Just in case you really have no idea what it is, here’s the Wikipedia entry) As more and more is done online, fax has become less and less relevant to our lives. I don’t have a fax machine at the place I live for the last 11 years, and I rarely need to fax anything to anyone.

However there are always some backward companies that require you to either fax or use snail-mail to send forms back to them, as your hand-writing signature is the only mean of authentication. Some are kind enough to provide a Reply-Paid address, but of those who don’t I have to either (1) pay Australian Post 50 cents to send that form (2) find someone with a fax machine so I only pay a local call.

Worse, there are some companies that will only fax their documents to you. They probably print the whole thing out from the Word documents, before feeding them to the fax machines. Ever heard of “emails”?

An Internet-based fax to/from email gateway seems to be a nice solution to this problem. Don’t have a fax machine but glued to the Internet whole day? No problem! You can send your document (as an image, a PDF, etc) to this email address and it will be faxed to the destination number. Conversely, they will also receive fax for you and re-send to you as an email document.

Utbox is such company, who provides fax to/from email gateway service in Australia. Moreover, they have a one month / $5 credit free trail. I signed up earlier this week because I have one document that I need to fax. No credit card information required when you sign up.

$5 credit lets you send out 33 pages or receive 100 pages of fax. Good enough to fix up my immediate needs. You do however need to keep “topping up” your account to continue using their service (currently $60/year).

Channel 9’s A Current Affair aired a program on Save online this Christmas, featuring some of the best online stores that gives you good products for bargain basement prices.

By shopping over the Internet you can also spare yourself the crowds and queues and shop 24/7.

Here’s a list of Netguide’s recommended shopping sites.

• www.graysonline.com.au — great for buying wine, they sell an amazing array of quality wines.
• www.dealsdirect.com.au — an online department store where you can buy everything from DVDs to TVs.
• www.oo.com.au — another online department store that sells surplus products sourced from manufacturers and distributors.
• www.oztion.com.au — an online auction site similar to eBay except you don’t have to pay a fee if you don’t sell an item.
• www.perfumeempire.com.au — an Australian perfume retailer.
• shopping.com — sells electronics, health and beauty products, toys, games and more.
• www.redballoondays.com.au — for unique experiences such as hot air balloon rides and jet boat rides.

You can watch the 3+ minute long video online. Unfortunately Internet Explorer is required so Mac and Firefox users have to find another way.

Online retailer OO.com.au and auction site OZtion are specially featured in the show. OO has always been one of my favourite (as you can see how often they got featured on this blog). They do have sales on branded watches, golf sets and perfumes which unfortunately I am not really into these things (perfume? huh? I am an engineer!) however there are also interesting gadgets I like to talk about.

I don’t recall talking about OZtion here in this blog, but they do aim to beat eBay in Australia. With my 12 year experience in Internet, I’ve seen online auction sites in Australia come and gone, however it looks like OZtion might be the one most likely to rival eBay. It has grown a lot since I last looked at it, but I am sure it must been struggling with its growing pain at the moment, trying to digest the traffic sent from ACA. I actually could not access the website on Tuesday, but it is back to normal now.

There are many other websites that were not mentioned. Some of my picks:

• eBay — can’t find it anywhere else? Most likely you can find that on eBay.
• DoorOne — like Shopping.com, run by eBay, also a price comparison site.
• SoldSmart and Daily Deals — big discount online shops like Deals Direct and OO.

And don’t forget about all the promotions that those online shops will be having in the coming month! Looks like this is going to be a busy blog next month.

Got an email from EmailCash yesterday about their Christmas Promotion, where you can earn double reward points in some of the affiliated shops.

From their site:

Shop at any of the following 26 Reward Partners between Tuesday 21st November 2006 until Tuesday 19th December 2006, and you will earn Double Reward Points for any purchase.

EmailCash is a premium reward network in Australia, and it has a large number of affiliated reward partners where you can shop from. I have briefly talked about them when I wrote about different ways of getting rewards from buying from OO.com.au, but I think they do deserve a full review (well, sometime in the future).

Two of my favourite shops are listed in the reward partners that participate in double reward points promotion — Two Dollars and Deals Direct. Take Deals Direct for example, during the promotion for every dollar you spend, you’ll earn 4 EmailCash points. 1 EmailCash point usually values at 1 cent (I said usually because EmailCash’s point system is indeed as complicated as a small country’s economy), that means for every $100 you spent on Deals Direct you’ll get roughly $4 back — 4% cashback rewards!!

Do note that you don’t really get “cashback”, but you can somehow redeem EmailCash “points” to EmailCash “cash”, and then transfer EmailCash “cash” to real $$. That alone is enough for another post.

From Big W‘s latest catelogue, Samsung S600 digital camera + 512Mb SD card bundle can be yours for $228. I don’t think you can have it cheaper elsewhere (at least from my brief research).

What does it have?

• 6M pixel CCD
• 3x optical zoom + 5x digital zoom
• 2.5in LCD screen at 112,000 pixels
• 2x AA battery
• Weight 136g

It’s an entry level P&S camera, but what impresses me is its 5cm macro mode (if you ever need to take any product picture) and 640×480 30fps movie mode. Shooting MJPEG movies at that resolution and frame rate, no wonder they need to bundle a 512Mb SD card :)

I’ve also noted the come back of $998 Aiko 81cm LCD TV. Looks like this is going to be their everyday price.

Is “doing more exercise” ever your new year resolution? Deals Direct‘s latest featured bargain might just be the item that can help you out!

For 2 days onlyactually only one day left, you can get Total Body Workout Elliptic Exercise Bike for only $99.95 + $19.95 delivery.

If your looking for the perfect workout, then don’t go further than this fantastic elliptical bike! Using an elliptic motion, you are working more muscle groups to tone and give shape! Boost your health, get in shape and get fit! At the same time, you will have fun!

Looks like a great way to get rid of that spare tire I have been accumulating!

Actually “doing more exercise” has indeed been my new year resolution for the last couple of years, and we did have a similar elliptical bike that we bought from Myer aroud 6 years ago (I remembered that we paid $250+ back then). It’s now sitting in the guest room rarely used. That again proves having the convenience does not necessarily guarantee things will happen. I need some other motivation… Maybe I need a large LCD TV right in front of the bike? :)

Deal ends Wednesday 22 November 2006 at 5:00pm.

(First of all, thanks to Yan at ProBargainHunter who wrote a review on Jajah and subsequently used it to call me at work last week.)

It’s not the first time I wrote about making free phone calls here at Bargain Blog. Betamax’s VoipStunt allows you to call anyone under their “free countries” for free, as long as you charge up in your account every 120 days. Then there’s also Gizmo Project, where you can call your friend’s line number for free, as long as he/she is also an active user of Gizmo.

Jajah also gives you free calls, but like all the other free services, there usually comes with a catch. The calls are only free between Jajah users. However, what sets Jajah apart from the rest, is its connection mechanism. No special client software is required — it rings your own land line. Moreover, no Internet connection is required besides initiating the call, so your BitTorrent download does not degrade the call quality.

From its own FAQ:

What is the difference between JAJAH and other VoIP services?

The calls made through JAJAH WEB are phone-to-phone, which means you don’t need a headset, a microphone or a special phone to use it, so you don’t have to be tied to your computer. JAJAH WEB also uses the web browser, so you don’t have to download or install any kind of software to use it. Using JAJAH WEB is as simple and as comfortable as placing a regular phone call, only much cheaper.

Well. Many of us do not care whether it is much cheaper, as long as it is free. So, how do I go about making free phone calls on Jajah? Here are the steps:

1. Go to their website and hit register now! Make sure you read through their terms and conditions as there are certain things that you cannot do (like use it to do tele-marketing). You can put up to 3 phone numbers against your account.
2. Ask the person you wish to call to also sign up with his/her own phone number.
3. Now log back into Jajah’s website, select the number you wish to call from, type in your friend’s number you wish to call to, hit that green button CALL!
4. Your number will ring straight away, and you’ll hear the message that “Jajah is connecting you”. It will then dial your friend’s number and connect the call.

Free calls between Jajah users is only available if both the caller and callee are residing in Zone 1 or Zone 2 countries. See Jajah’s rates page for a list of such countries. Currently you can make free calls to those in USA, Canada, China, Singapore and Hong Kong, both land line and mobile. To Australia only land line numbers are free.

Another good thing is, once you put in a number you wish to call, it automatically tells you that whether it is a Jajah-to-Jajah free call or a charged call, so there is no need to keep tracking which one of your friends have signed up to this service.

The quality of the calls is actually quite alright. From the delay and echo’s you can tell that it’s VoIP-backed, but the sound quality is better than VoIPStunt when I tried to call my family in Taiwan. YMMV, as always, and I guess it also depends on the country you are calling.

Now, the tricky part is, how do you get the people you wish to call to sign up? It’s going to be a big challenge to ask my parents to go to an English website, fill in all the required details and sign up to their services. Or sometimes the person you wish to call does not even have Internet access.

Jajah sort of limits you in terms of what phone number you are allowed to register. When I signed up the country drop-down list was greyed out and default to Australia, as it looks at the incoming IP address to determine which country you are coming from. In another word, Jajah is trying to stop you from registering a Taiwan phone number (+886) from an Australia IP address.

Bummer.

Except IP can be easily spoofed using an open proxy. Soon I was chatting on the phone with my parents using Jajah, after registering another account with my parents’ Taiwan landline number :)

Jenny, an old uni course mate of mine, discovered this blog today and sent me some of her recent bargain tips:

oo.com.au — if you type in code “VIRGIN” (as in Virgin Blue Airline) when you buy soemthing, you get a free mouse pad.

On your birthday, you only pay 90cents for Taronga Zoo entry. This offer is valid from July 2006 to June 2007.

Buying dog flea/all wormers etc applicators — this place is the cheapest, but you have to research first which one you want to buy. www.pricelesspets.com.au.

Thanks!

I got this from Johnson a friend from church, that Citibank has a Gold VISA Credit-card with No Annual Fee, low 6.9%pa interest on balance transfer and Free Rewards Programme with Qantas Frequent Flyer.

Citibank offers Gold card for no fee ever. Even sweeter, it comes with the Qantas frequent flyer rewards program with a ratio of 1:1. But if you go to the citibank webpage, you wouldn’t find the page that offers the card for no fee.

That’s certainly sweet, and I guess InfoChoice’s credit card comparison table needs an update. Unlike many other banks, Citibank’s Gold Card offers no fee and interest free period. Moreover it has all the benefits of a gold card — travel insurance, higher credit limit, etc.

Except I have no idea what frequent flyer points are for, as I don’t travel that often. Anyone with no fee, interest free period, gold card benefits and monetary rewards like cash back?