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Popular deal sites – November 2007

Published December 5th, 2007 in Popular Sites Series. 3 Comments

This is November 2007 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 October results. The list has a total of 30 web sites. There are 51 more in my database that didn’t meet the Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement.

The good news is that the list is not shrinking any longer. Two sites appeared in the list this month, dailyedeals.com and (surprisingly for me) bargainshare.com who came with a whooping (54.08%) Alexa rank increase. If anyone has an explanation to this, step out. Looking at their Alexa chart however it sounds like it was a one time event.

Despite this phenomena, the best result this month comes from gottadeal.com (72.36%). I am sure this is thanks to their established Black Friday reputation. judysbook.com (-9.92%) had the worst result in November. I guess the news about site being sold starts to take effect

I should also note dealtaker.com who is winning the Favorite Deal Site contest I am running on this blog. Check out the top 5 deal sites in the widget I added to the upper right corner of the front page and vote for your favorite if you have not done so yet!

#	Web Site	Alexa Rank		Page Rank		Online Since
1	slickdeals.net (info)	1155	(10.67%)	5		10-Nov-1999
2	fatwallet.com (info)	1678	(12.51%)	6		29-Nov-1999
3	anandtech.com	4387	(3.6%)	6		24-Aug-1997
4	deals2buy.com	5674	(13.86%)	3		15-Nov-2002
5	dealnews.com (info)	7020	(16.56%)	6		20-Jan-1999
6	techbargains.com	7808	(12.86%)	5		03-May-1999
7	bensbargains.net	9686	(10.64%)	5		21-Mar-2000
8	dealsea.com	10048	(25.69%)	5		27-Jun-2001
9 (13)	gottadeal.com	13997	(72.36%)	3		27-Jan-2003
10 (1)	dealcatcher.com	14269	(10.12%)	5		28-Jul-1999
11 (1)	dealspl.us (info)	16055	(25.91%)	5		15-May-2006
12	dealtaker.com (info)	18818	(17.88%)	4		08-Feb-2004
13 (2)	edealinfo.com	19863	(9.14%)	5		12-Dec-2000
14	cheapstingybargains.com	20975	(14.1%)	5		20-Jan-2005
15 (2)	resellerratings.com (info)	22956	(3.2%)	6		18-Jun-1998
16 (1)	xpbargains.com	24149	(9.71%)	4		29-Nov-2001
17 (1)	dealigg.com (info)	26619	(20.3%)	5		04-Sep-2006
18 (2)	spoofee.com	27185	(11.03%)	4		31-Dec-2000
19 (2)	dealsofamerica.com	27939	(30.39%)	4		06-Sep-2003
20 (3)	judysbook.com	34831	(-9.92%)	6		11-Aug-2003
21 (2)	flamingoworld.com	35115	(-1.11%)	6		19-May-1999
22 (2)	dealofday.com	35274	(7.93%)	7		30-Aug-1999
23	gotapex.com	54220	(-0.39%)	5		29-Apr-1999
24	bargainist.com (info)	55795	(4.14%)	6		21-Nov-2006
25	bradsdeals.com	66466	(6.93%)	5		29-Jun-2005
26 (1)	dealslist.com	79887	(8.31%)	3		18-Jul-2000
27 (1)	ableshoppers.com	88168	(8.82%)	4		08-Oct-2000
28 (2)	bargaineering.com	89709	(-5.48%)	0	(-2)	01-Dec-2004
29	dailyedeals.com	91248	(9.91%)	4		18-Feb-2000
30 (13)	bargainshare.com	92894	(54.08%)	2		29-Nov-2002

Judysbook is looking for a buyer

Published October 26th, 2007 in Business: Strategy. 2 Comments

The road has been rough for JudysBook ever since the management changed business venue in September 2006 moving away from online reviews to shopping deals and coupons.

JudysBook ranking in my monthly deal sites list has gone down from #10 in May to #16 last month and it doesn’t seem like the new direction has picked up despite the team’s attempts to spice up the site with such features as local search and embedded maps.

TechCrunch reports and I got a confirmation independently from Rahul Pathak, the VP of Product Development at Judys Book, that the company is looking for a buyer. Here is Rahul’s reply to my question about what will happen to the team and CouponLooker, another site JudysBook launched this year:

The team will largely be moving on to other things. We’re currently in the process of selling the company and our preference is to sell it as an operating entity so presumably couponlooker would stay around. Definitely can’t say for sure.

As to what happened between then and now that caused the demise of JudysBook, I think this comment by Tom Grubisich to the post at TechCrunch sums it up pretty well.

New search engine launched, meet CouponLooker

Published April 5th, 2007 in Business Mashup and Shopping Coupons. 7 Comments

A new website has just launched that might make your bargain hunting life a little easier, my dear readers. CouponLooker is a search engine that brings coupons from multiple sources at your fingerprints.

This is a very timely offering. I have reviewed websites aggregating deals in the past here and here but this is the first time I write about aggregating coupons. My monthly list of coupon sites keeps growing and for someone to launch a search engine like this was just a matter of time.

The site has been brought to life by the folks from JudysBook who seem to dip their toes into deals/coupons niche ever deeper each time I come to visit their place. The last update added local mapping feature which lets you see those deals marked on your local area map. Check it out.

Affiliate or not?

CouponLooker seems to be a step aside from that road to the fairyland of affiliate marketing which didn’t start very smoothly for JudysBook.

We tried to get a broad base of coupon sites into our indexes to provide useful results to consumers. Long term we’d like to be comprehensive.

This was from Rahul Pathak, the VP of Product Development at Judy’s Book. The search engine seems to follow the business model used by Google and Yahoo who generate revenue via sponsored results and context ads. You can already see ads on the right side bar of the search results page. I am yet to find a sponsored result though.

I have been using the tool for some time now and the impression is very positive so far. The website is very cleanly designed. The search results are arranged by the partner advertising the coupon. Some results can be further expanded into sub results if multiple offers are detected from the same partner. More often than not you can see the coupon expiration date and/or other details within the results.

Where is my coupon?

The only big problem I see with the tool is that after clicking through the link I get to the partner page with tens or hundreds of coupons and my particular coupon is not highlighted or marked in any way. This is not very convenient since I then have to look around that page searching for what I need.

Another interesting feature offered by CouponLooker team is a blog widget. I have embedded one in this post for you to see. You can search for coupons from the widget itself but you will have to go to the main site to get details on those coupons after you click on the results in the widget. Is that extra click really necessary? I guess this is just an effort, and a rather lousy one, to get you to visit the main site more often.

Conclusion

This is a very interesting idea and a useful search engine. I am really impressed. As long as the team stays independent and open regarding how results are ordered and what sources are crawled, I am going to recommend it to anyone as a great time and money saving tool. What is your opinion?

Dozen roses in time for Valentine’s Day

Published January 29th, 2007 in Money Saving Tools. 8 Comments

I hope this time around I will do it the right way. Instead of hectically rushing from store to store on February 14, I will order my flowers online ahead of time. Thanks to Dave who sent me this great tip I don’t have to waste my time figuring out who offers the best deal!

The folks at Judysbook have called 143 florists (14 national, and 129 in 27 metro areas) and asked what would it cost to get that dozen of long-stemmed roses delivered on Valentine’s Day.

Here are 10 finalists serving nationally (sorted by price as of January 15). For the complete list and for local deals in your area go to Valentine’s Day Roses at Judysbook.

Florist	Phone	Price
ProFlowers	(800) 580-2913	$39.98
Kabloom	N/A	$49.99
FTD	(800) SEND-FTD	$59.99
American Blooms	(800) 416-6554	$59.99
Flower Store	N/A	$59.99
1800Flowers	(800) FLOWERS	$59.99
Flower.com	N/A	$63.99
Flower Delivery	N/A	$63.99
Just Flowers	(800) 597-4489	$63.99
Hallmark Flowers	N/A	$69.95

Update: If you are looking for a really hot deal, follow this link to order TWO dozen roses AND a vase for ~~$39.99~~ $49.99

Judysbook’s New Face Looks Green

Published October 26th, 2006 in Business Social and Business: Strategy. 56 Comments

I have previously mentioned Judysbook’s new home page design here. After looking at it some more I decided that the event deserves a special coverage. Judysbook traditionally has been a destination to get reviews for your local businesses and is competing with such web sites as Yelp and Insiderpages. On September 13 they announced a new direction which actually got them into a much busier market niche. The announcement produced 22 mainly negative comments at the usually scarce for comments company blog. Here are just a few:

UGH! It’s just awful. If I wanted a shopping site, I would go to Amazon, or eBay. I go to Judy’s Book intentionally to get insight into and opinions from MY community…

…Why change what was unique about book? There are better deal sites all around, and this concept won’t gain traction the way you are thinking. You’ve just lost a user fellas!…

…Ick. I hate it. What used to be a review website has turned into nothing more than a mechanism for commercialization.

So why the change? Well, the answer seems to be fairly obvious: money. Before you flame me off let me lay down my thoughts.

Judysbook has been on the market for longer than Yelp and about the same time as Insiderpages yet it seems to be struggling to compete with the two in all aspects.
Monetizing reviews business certainly takes more effort than living off of sales commission.
“Social” is the latest buzz word and it is quickly spreading to on-line shopping. As Bob Tedeschi from N.Y. Times has put it “These sites are hoping to ride the MySpace wave by gathering people in one place to swap shopping ideas.”

The owners obviously got so sold on the “social” part that they rushed off to implement it without giving much thought as to how they are going to integrate it with the existing features.

As a company, we’ve had a bigger appetite for feature and scope than what we’ve been able to digest in terms of delivering users a quality user experience. I am aware of this fact and it is a flaw in our culture that I am working hard to correct.

The last quote is straight from Judysbook’s CEO Andy Sack’s blog.

I personally have nothing against a desire to make an extra buck or two – I just hope Andy has thought it through. Such drastic changes may very well send the old timers running to look for alternatives and I honestly don’t wish that to happen. Judysbook has built a devoted community which is their single biggest asset IMHO. My advice will be – don’t bet everything you have – no matter how green the pot may look.

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