Yes you can.

Unlike other online communities/forums, at OzBargain we are in fact encouraging merchants, service providers or store owners to post their specials on OzBargain. The reason is simple – if it is a good bargain, we want to know about it! However, there are a few points that a merchant might wish to consider.

• Sock-puppeting is strictly forbidden and your store might result in permanent ban from OzBargain. You should not create multiple accounts and pose as a customer. You should not ask your existing clients/customers to sign up on OzBargain to post positive reviews.

• Posting as a merchant does not give your offer any special treatment, and it will be voted by our members in the same way that member-posted offers will be voted. If the offer you posted is not really a bargain, it will be voted down (which might result in a temporary ban for your site). Guidelines for posting deals can be found here.

• Remember to declare your relationship with the store (I am the owner, I work for this shop, etc), if you have not yet received Store Representative status.

• Tip General promotions (eg new store, 40% off sale etc) tend to be very chancey on OzBargain. Listing one or a few items that you think are being sold at a better price than your competition, usually help. But make sure it is a better price than your competition, 'cos many people will do their own research as well.

Short answer – NO.

OzBargain is primarily a bargain sharing community, and it is not a place for advertisement unless you have a special offer for our members. Automated or mass posting is not going to offer our members any value, and will likely to bring negative feedbacks to your company (which might result it banned).

In short, there are a few reasons why a store is “banned”, i.e. you get an error message saying “Posting deals from <your store's domain> has been banned…”. There is also a distinction between permanent ban and temporary ban. Some of the reasons are:

• You have previously violated OzBargain's terms of services. For example, sock-puppeting, spamming, etc.
• You are posting from a URL shortening service or other social/sharing site.
• You have previously requested nothing from your site can be posted on OzBargain.
• Your store have received too many negative votes from bargains posted over the last 5 days.

For more explanation on why an account is unable to post deal, see help on posting ban.

• For more information, please see the main article. Store Representative.

Yes you can, however you might wish to follow the procedure.

• Your store must have at least one offer listed on OzBargain. As you don't have to be a store rep to post, you'll have to show us a promotion before a store profile can be created and store rep status assigned.
• Use the contact form to request for store profile page + store rep status.

If your request has been approved, a store profile page will be created for your store, and your account will be listed as the store representative.

In theory – yes. However, in practise we do not recommend merchants to have multiple account for different purposes. Our sock-puppeting and ghost account detection functionality might detect it, which then might result you store banned.

Please contact us if you wish to have multiple accounts.

• For more information on stats and advertising, please see our Advertise page.

As of August 2009, OzBargain has closed all direct advertising on display banners (reason: too much effort for scotty). If you wish to advertise on OzBargain's display ads space, you can target OzBargain on Google Adwords.

OzBargain runs our Weekly Competition every Thursday at 12pm, and we will pick two winners to receive a prize each. If you are a merchant who is interested in sponsoring our weekly competition, please see the sponsorship section of the competition page.

What would you get from sponsoring the competition –

• Praises from our members about sponsoring their favourite website.
• Envy from your competitors because you are the proud sponsor.
• A 120×60 button linked to your website on almost all the pages.

What you don't get from sponsoring OzBargain –

• Special treatment from the moderators and our members. If you post bad deals, they will still be voted down.

Do not vote on deals where you have some relationship with the business.

You can put in positive comments which highlight benefits of a deal, provided you fully disclose your relationship with the business.

1. It's a good idea to watch the bargains posted on the site for a number of days, before your first post. Pay particular attention to what shoppers like about good deals and avoid doing what encourages negative voting
2. Shoppers are always entitled to make a vote on a Listing. We do have guidelines under which if they are not met we will revoke a negative vote - these are listed here.
3. Reps shouldn't argue with shoppers; they are potential customers. If you think they have rated you unfairly, use the REPORT button. That's the fastest way to call on the mods for help.
4. This is a bargain site where people are looking for bargains. Unlike some sites, ours lets vendors post here too.
5. Some bargains do incredibly well. But *not all* bargains will become hits, no matter how good they are. A flood of posts can knock a deall of the front page before many people have seen it. Sometimes, a hotter deal is posted at the same time, which soaks up all the attention. Then other times, the readers just didn't think a particular bargain was of interest to them.
6. Limits were introduced because some vendors were shooting themselves in the foot, by trying to post too many deals at once. Some shoppers voted against them, regardless of the deal posted. Other shoppers lodged complaints against the vendor in the vendor's posts as well as with the moderators.
7. On OzBargain, vendors tend to make a better impression when they post real deals and are open and honest, disclosing all conditions necessary for a sale. Make sure your deal is better than your most competitive rival.
8. Because they are bargain hunters they may not be the most loyal, each has their own sense of value, for example some rate service highly - others not.
   
   And its free to be here. If it works, great! :) If it doesn't then it's only cost you some time.