News, Tips and Resources for Online Bargain Hunters
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Just came back from a short trip to NYC (my first time to the city). Caught this funny scene on Fifth Avenue the day we were returning back to Chicago.
Police have a very strange way of moving around the city in big groups. This one had around 100 cars and filled entire city block!
The sign says: “No standing any time. Don’t even THINK of parking here”.
This is July 2008 revision of the Popular Price Comparison web sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.
The change in rating shows the difference compared to June results. The list has a total of 35 web sites and there are 16 more sites in my database that don’t meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement.
The best gainer this month is thefind.com (26.13%) which has been doing very nicely this year, up to #18 from #27 in December, 2007.
The worst performer is jellyfish.com (-28.48%). This is understandingly. After Microsoft integrated cash back part of the site into Live Search, smack shopping is all that is left of JellyFish.
| # | Web Site | Alexa Rank | Page Rank | Online Since | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | shopping.yahoo.com | 1 (*) | 8 | 18-Jan-1995 | ||
| 2 | froogle.google.com | 2 (*) | 8 | 11-Sep-2001 | ||
| 3 | shopping.msn.com | 6 (*) | 7 | (-1) | 10-Nov-1994 | |
| 4 | shopping.aol.com | 21 (*) | 7 | (-1) | 22-Jun-1995 | |
| 5 | shopper.cnet.com (info) | 126 (*) | (1.56%) | 7 | 05-Jul-1996 | |
| 6 | shopping.com | 429 | (-8.88%) | 7 | 03-Jul-1997 | |
| 7 | dealtime.com | 531 | (-16.19%) | 6 | (-1) | 07-Oct-1998 |
| 8 | nextag.com | 536 | (1.29%) | 7 | 15-Oct-1998 | |
| 9 | bizrate.com | 642 | (0.31%) | 7 | 24-Apr-1996 | |
| 10 | shoplocal.com | 823 | (3.86%) | 7 | (-1) | 24-Sep-1998 |
| 11 | pricegrabber.com (info) | 971 | (-7.89%) | 8 | 10-Mar-1999 | |
| 12 | shopzilla.com | 1271 | (-2.17%) | 5 | (-2) | 04-Jul-2002 |
| 13 | epinions.com | 1411 | (-0.64%) | 7 | 12-Feb-1999 | |
| 14 | pronto.com | 1640 | (8.94%) | 7 | 01-Jan-2006 | |
| 15 | smarter.com | 2060 | (-0.64%) | 6 | 28-Apr-1998 | |
| 16 | become.com | 3173 | (-9.64%) | 6 | 20-Jan-2004 | |
| 17 | pricerunner.com | 3657 | (14.09%) | 6 | (-1) | 19-May-1999 |
18 ( 3) |
thefind.com (info) | 5240 | (26.13%) | 6 | 19-Oct-2006 | |
| 19 | like.com | 5739 | (8.43%) | 6 | (1) | 22-Feb-1995 |
20 ( 2) |
calibex.com | 5955 | (-6.7%) | 4 | 02-Oct-2000 | |
| 21 (1) |
mysimon.com | 6903 | (-3.31%) | 8 | 15-Apr-1998 | |
| 22 | retrevo.com | 7673 | (6.48%) | 6 | 10-May-2006 | |
| 23 (1) |
ebates.com | 12061 | (0.53%) | 6 | 29-Dec-1998 | |
| 24 (1) |
pricewatch.com | 12456 | (-3.48%) | 6 | 26-Sep-1995 | |
| 25 (1) |
shopwiki.com | 16117 | (21.91%) | 5 | 15-Dec-2004 | |
| 26 (1) |
dealighted.com (info) | 20376 | (-10.91%) | 6 | 09-Oct-2006 | |
| 27 | sortprice.com | 22613 | (-3.69%) | 5 | (-1) | 15-Jan-2004 |
| 28 | bestwebbuys.com | 27518 | (-0.78%) | 6 | (-1) | 06-Jan-1998 |
| 29 | pricescan.com | 38530 | (-1.86%) | 6 | 03-Sep-1997 | |
| 30 | jellyfish.com | 52167 | (-30%) | 5 | 26-Jun-2006 | |
| 31 | mpire.com | 53733 | (-8.7%) | 6 | 01-Jun-2006 | |
| 32 | hawkee.com | 63372 (**) | (6.77%) | 5 | 02-Jan-1997 | |
| 33 | bottomdollar.com | 66316 | (6.48%) | 0 | (-4) | 04-Jul-1997 |
| 34 | streetprices.com | 92439 | (-3.51%) | 5 | 16-Oct-1997 | |
| 35 | salescircular.com | 98028 | (0.67%) | 6 | (1) | 09-Jun-1998 |
(*) Note: traffic stats for these sites is an aggregate of all traffic to the top domain (e.g. Yahoo.com or Google.com) and thus cannot be used to judge how popular this particular price comparison service is.
(**) Note: the web site is a portal with price comparison engine being one of the offered web services. Alexa rank cannot be used to judge how popular this price comparison engine is.
Product price comparison is an essential part of smart online shopping. There is a variety of established sites that compete in this market. Most of them however work off the same basic concept and suffer from the same problems, and so despite the sheer amount of competition, the process of finding the lowest price on a gadget can be lengthy and cumbersome.
A new website has surfaced on LifeHacker this week that aims at taking uncertainty out of the decision making process. BeatThat is a new flashy web 2.0 project that mixes price comparison with elements of social bargain hunting.
BeatThat is a shopping directory of a few hundred popular consumer products. Each product links to an online merchant that offers the product for sale at the lowest price known. Members are then rewarded for challenging any of the listed offers with an alternative one that will lower the price even further.
Just like a normal price comparison site, BeatThat lists multiple offers for each product sorted by price. Unlike normal price comparison site though, real people find, verify and submit offers for inclusion to the BeatThat directory. Just like in a deal forum, the community submits low price offers they find, including those that require use of coupons, rebates, and/or cash back. Unlike in a forum, the number of products is fixed and members are not allowed to submit just any deal.
I have signed up for an account but have not received my confirmation email, so I can’t comment on how the part of the site related to offer submission works. What I would like to know is how exactly the bargain hunters get rewarded. Is it a flat payout or somehow tied to the price difference they bring with the new offer?
Either way so far I love how the team has implemented the idea and I wish them good luck in bringing it to a fruition.
Source: BeatThat! Community Finds Online Shopping Deals at LifeHacker
This is July 2008 revision of the Popular Deal Sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.
The change in rating shows the difference compared to June results and includes all deal sites from my database that meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement. I am sticking with the original limit as moving to 50,000 seems to cut some interesting sites.
The top gainers this month are dealtaker.com (9.86%) and judysbook.com (9.48%), both continue to recover from the slump they got themselves into just recently. The worst performer is hot-deals.org (-20.51%) which is a very old deal site with a pretty basic design that I am sure holds together thanks to the loyal members it acquired since 2000.
| # | Web Site | Alexa Rank | Page Rank | Online Since | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | slickdeals.net (info) | 590 | (-7.47%) | 6 | 10-Nov-1999 | |
| 2 | fatwallet.com (info) | 1148 | (-9.02%) | 6 | 29-Nov-1999 | |
| 3 (1) | anandtech.com | 3600 | (-7.43%) | 6 | 24-Aug-1997 | |
| 4 (1) | dealnews.com (info) | 3622 | (-9.29%) | 6 | 20-Jan-1999 | |
| 5 | deals2buy.com (info) | 3888 | (-4.97%) | 4 | 15-Nov-2002 | |
| 6 (1) | bensbargains.net | 4389 | (-9.75%) | 5 | 21-Mar-2000 | |
| 7 (1) | techbargains.com (info) | 4565 | (-17.44%) | 6 | 03-May-1999 | |
| 8 | dealsea.com | 5597 | (-18.06%) | 6 | (1) | 27-Jun-2001 |
| 9 | dealcatcher.com | 8187 | (-11.84%) | 6 | 28-Jul-1999 | |
| 10 | dealspl.us (info) | 8946 | (-0.6%) | 5 | (-1) | 15-May-2006 |
| 11 | cheapstingybargains.com | 10954 | (3.05%) | 5 | 20-Jan-2005 | |
| 12 | dealigg.com (info) | 12202 | (2.45%) | 4 | 04-Sep-2006 | |
| 13 (2) | dealtaker.com (info) | 12218 | (9.86%) | 6 | (1) | 08-Feb-2004 |
| 14 (1) | spoofee.com | 14072 | (-10.22%) | 4 | 31-Dec-2000 | |
| 15 (1) | resellerratings.com (info) | 14624 | (-6.48%) | 6 | 18-Jun-1998 | |
| 16 (2) | edealinfo.com | 14707 | (-9.47%) | 5 | 12-Dec-2000 | |
| 17 | xpbargains.com | 14773 | (-4.49%) | 5 | 29-Nov-2001 | |
| 18 | dealsofamerica.com | 17617 | (2.05%) | 4 | 06-Sep-2003 | |
| 19 (1) | dealofday.com | 27589 | (-2.77%) | 6 | (-1) | 30-Aug-1999 |
| 20 (1) | gottadeal.com | 28554 | (-8.04%) | 5 | 27-Jan-2003 | |
| 21 | bargainist.com (info) | 30990 | (0.78%) | 5 | 21-Nov-2006 | |
| 22 (2) | judysbook.com | 35378 | (9.48%) | 6 | 11-Aug-2003 | |
| 23 (1) | couponalbum.com | 36783 | (2.73%) | 4 | (-1) | 18-Jan-2006 |
| 24 (1) | bradsdeals.com | 42928 | (-13.21%) | 5 | 29-Jun-2005 | |
| 25 (4) | savings.com | 46925 | (3.17%) | 4 | 20-Apr-1995 | |
| 26 (1) | dealslist.com | 46963 | (1.21%) | 4 | 18-Jul-2000 | |
| 27 (2) | gotapex.com | 48330 | (-10.02%) | 5 | 29-Apr-1999 | |
| 28 (2) | passwird.com | 49724 | (-6.09%) | 4 | 28-Aug-2001 | |
| 29 (1) | ableshoppers.com | 54410 | (-12.97%) | 4 | 08-Oct-2000 | |
| 30 | hotdealsclub.com | 58787 | (-10.98%) | 4 | 27-Dec-2000 | |
| 31 | dailyedeals.com | 60410 | (-2.72%) | 4 | 18-Feb-2000 | |
| 32 (1) | bargaineering.com | 63684 | (-2.79%) | 2 | 01-Dec-2004 | |
| 33 (1) | hot-deals.org | 71957 | (-20.51%) | 4 | 10-May-2000 | |
| 34 | dealhack.com | 73275 | (-2.38%) | 6 | (1) | 06-Feb-2005 |
| 35 (2) | fishingfordeals.com | 99389 | (7.07%) | 3 | 23-May-2000 | |
Lastminute-Auctions.com is a tool for eBay bargain hunting that I somehow managed to miss. The website is not new (I found the first reference dated back to 2005) and the user interface is a bit awkward, but it does the job fine if you are OK with some rough edges (I know, I am a perfectionist) ;-)
lastminute-auction.com provides a new way to hunt for great bargains on eBay.com. We search current offers on ebay.com for auctions which meet our strict simple criteria:
1. The auction ends in 1 hour.
2. The price is currently 1 dollar or less.
Auction title, current price, expiration, number of bids, and shipping charges are crammed in a very compact list for the auctions that satisfy the criteria above. You can also narrow your selection by category or search stuff by title.
I gave it a try today and already found some “cool” stuff like this Atari monitor for $0.50 - pack 3 in a stack and you could use them as an artsy bar-stool. ;-) Seriously though, for the most part the auction details are accurate when clicking through to eBay and the only problem I potentially see with the site is that a reserve price if set can throw a monkey wrench into your bargain hunting efforts.
Are you an eBay junkie? What tools do you use to find your treasures?
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