I spent the past year creating Price Hipster, a product search engine and price watching website for the OzBargain community!

Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/11/2015 - 11:45
Last edited 13/11/2015 - 12:45

Update 13/11/15: Thanks everyone for the support and feedback! I realise there are heaps of comments here and no one wants to read through them all. If you have a suggestion, it has probably already been raised. I'm currently working on a big update and I'll be sure to let you all know when I release it. I'll be keen to get further feedback and suggestions then. :-)

Hi fellow OzBargainers!

I've spent the past year creating a powerful tool for you all.

https://www.pricehipster.com.au/

These are the reasons I created Price Hipster:

  1. Searching for products across multiple stores is painful. Sometimes you don't even know which stores to check for a product. Wouldn't it be great to conveniently search all stores from one place?

  2. Even if you want to find a product in one particular store, most store websites are very bad at searching their own products, and they're slow at it.

  3. There is no convenient way to find out the previous prices of products, making it difficult to hold vendors accountable for false claims of discounts. Some products vary wildly in price. Some change price nearly every day. For example:

https://www.pricehipster.com.au/product?id=NJNmxsZ3k5n

I really appreciate those OzBargainers who have taken the time to use internet archives to dig up previous prices, but it's less than ideal, and hopefully will now be a thing of the past!

Price Hipster currently includes 5 websites in its index. That will expand in the near future.

Questions for you all:

  1. Which stores should be added next?

  2. OzBargainers in Western Australia, how is the search latency for you? The search servers are in Sydney. I live in Brisbane and the search is pretty much instantaneous here.

If you find any issues with the website or have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

General Discussion

Related Stores

Price Hipster
Price Hipster

Comments

      • gimli on 12/09/2021 - 13:35

        I'm curious too.
        I assume the obtaining is done realtime with a scraper and you then need to maintain a database.

        It would pretty cool if you managed to scrape old archives!

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 13/09/2021 - 12:21

          There are multiple crawls per day and a database is kept by Price Hipster.

  • pformag on 03/09/2021 - 16:53

    Is the site down?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/09/2021 - 17:04
      +1

      Yup. The search database has been having issues for the last couple of weeks and getting worse. I'm trying to track down the problem. Unfortunately I knocked down the site while doing it. Still trying to find the source of the problem.

  • digitalerr0r on 12/10/2021 - 00:37

    wondering is there a way to force price updates for certain sites to get like a live feed from the retailer's site?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/10/2021 - 06:52

      There is no way to do that presently

  • CharityCase on 12/10/2021 - 12:17

    I found several stores are no long there or is it just me? Like JB hi-fi Harvey Norman and Officeworks

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/10/2021 - 18:56

      Officeworks hasn't been there for many years I think.

      You're the first person to even notice Harvey Norman is missing 😅

      JB Hi-Fi is indeed currently not available. Check a few comments up to see the story.

  • Olokun on 21/10/2021 - 10:52

    Hi Jazoom

    Looks like Bing Lee links are broken

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 21/10/2021 - 13:06

      Thanks. It looks like they've messed up their product feed and all URLs are incorrect. I've removed Bing Lee from Price Hipster and reached out to Bing Lee to fix it.

  • fredblogs on 22/10/2021 - 20:17

    Wonder why this search comes up empty: https://pricehipster.com/?q=lindt&stores=BkG5opaa

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 23/10/2021 - 12:44

      There is now a product showing up for me, but only one.

      For some reason for the past week or so the Coles website has been failing to serve up pages to Price Hipster's crawler, so unfortunately products will be missed. It's intermittent to it's hard to narrow down the actual problem, especially since it's very likely on Coles' end.

  • Pricebeat on 04/05/2022 - 11:44

    Looks the website is dumped now. Many stores removed or not showing up in search results

    • fredblogs on 04/05/2022 - 12:57

      I think OP has lost interest? :(

      OP any chance of monetizing it with ads / selling the website / open sourcing it ?

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/05/2022 - 13:16
        +2

        The amount of time I've been able to spend on it has been put towards maintaining it and keeping it running rather than new features. I don't think it's correct to say I've lost interest.

        One of the problems of monetisation over the last few years is cashback companies steal the last click with their browser extensions etc., so even if you found a product via Price Hipster the attribution goes to the cashback company.

        Open sourcing it all won't work for a few reasons. Ads is a possibility but it would have to be done very cleanly and not in a way that shares user data with Google, for example (I'm against that). I'm open to selling if there is a serious buyer.

        • fredblogs on 22/02/2024 - 19:31

          A lot of people don't use cashback browser extensions though (including me).
          Did you consider putting ads on the side?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/05/2022 - 13:09
      +1

      Dumped? There are still hundreds of stores on Price Hipster. Over time more are added and some are removed. It's the way things go.

      • fredblogs on 04/05/2022 - 13:12

        If someone is willing to write a crawler / scraper for BigW and Woolworths, would you consider using that?

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/05/2022 - 13:17

          If it could be integrated with Price Hipster, then yes. Price Hipster actually can already crawl BigW and Woolworths' websites. It's just that Woolworths is actively blocking Price Hipster. The problem is not the crawling, but Woolworths' hostility.

          • fredblogs on 04/05/2022 - 13:20

            @jazoom: Did you say it works intermittently? Could it be turned back on with a "last successful scan date" added to their items?

            Is it IP-based blocking? Seems like there must be solutions to that, if someone were willing to help with that side of things.

            • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/05/2022 - 13:28

              @fredblogs: It stopped working altogether. I'm quite sure they outsource their crawler blocking to another company. I believe they do IP-based blocking plus various other methods. It would be easy for Woolworths to get Price Hipster whitelisted (like Coles did) but I've been advised that Woolworths has made a business decision not to allow price comparison for their products with Price Hipster.

              If you and others complain to the ACCC they might take an interest in this, since it is anticompetitive behaviour.

              • fredblogs on 04/05/2022 - 13:41

                @jazoom: Yes, will do that. ACCC should be very interested given they're in a duopoly.

        • isthisreallife22 on 04/05/2022 - 14:34

          Big W has a very simple /products and /prices API actually. I suspect Woolworths might be the same

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 05/05/2022 - 07:31

            @isthisreallife22: That's all part of scraping/crawling. It doesn't make a difference in this case. In fact, I was tapping into the Woolworths' API directly since it's kind on servers.

            • isthisreallife22 on 10/05/2022 - 10:08

              @jazoom: Ok - are you getting denied by anti-bot protection or something?

              • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 10/05/2022 - 12:38

                @isthisreallife22: yes

                • fredblogs on 11/05/2022 - 10:15

                  @jazoom: Curious, what error message do you get? I've also been incorrectly blocked when using the Woolworths site from my laptop, but works fine from my phone.

                  • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/05/2022 - 11:22

                    @fredblogs: I can't remember what status code, but there was no useful error message.

                    • HairyChickens on 17/05/2022 - 17:18
                      +1

                      @jazoom: Getting an Error 521. Server maintenance?

                      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 18/05/2022 - 08:55
                        +2

                        @HairyChickens: Unfortunately the server cluster did some weird stuff while I was at work. I just got it all fixed this morning. Should be working now.

  • StonedWizard on 02/07/2022 - 17:32

    Is there a way to get price updates on a brands entire range, rather than individual items?

    E.g. I want updates on all Ryobi products rather than having to keep monitoring it.

    Sorry, if this has been asked before.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/07/2022 - 16:45

      That's not presently possible, sorry

  • njwozb on 02/07/2022 - 19:36

    All but one of my Coles alerts have disappeared from my dashboard. Also they aren't showing up in search. Is there a problem with coles at the moment?

    • GreenGuava on 02/07/2022 - 21:02
      +1

      Yes I've noticed this on my dashboard too. Also, the Coles products missing from my dash no longer come up when searching manually. As an uneducated guess, I'm presuming something's gone wrong with the Price Hipster price crawler/indexer, or Coles has changed something in their backend.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 04/07/2022 - 16:47
      +2

      The Coles and Bunnings websites are much more temperamental than other websites crawled by Price Hipster. Sometimes it works well and others it doesn't. There are lots of timeout issues.

      I've increased the resources available to the crawler so it can work a bit faster. Maybe that will help.

      Back in the day I implemented crawlers that just made requests to their undocumented APIs, but then they made updates to their websites that made it very difficult so I switched to using an automated browser to load each page individually just as a human user would. That uses much more resources for their servers and for the crawler, and it is much less reliable. Though, there are other websites crawled in the same way that do reliably serve up the pages to the crawler without timeouts.

      • njwozb on 06/07/2022 - 13:19

        Thanks

        I've noticed something that may be relevant.
        Coles now stores a cookie in your browser with your location info
        So the URL now includes your location
        I wonder if that is causing an issue with your crawler.
        So as an example this product at coles:
        https://shop.coles.com.au/a/national/product/mutti-organic-p…
        That is the URL on my browser after I've CLEARED all the coles cookies.
        On price hipster the URL is:
        https://shop.coles.com.au/a/alexandria/product/mutti-organic…

        See how it has 'alexandria' in the URL rather than 'national'

        If I click on that URL in price hipster then that is the URL that shows in my browser (I still have cookies cleared)
        BUT if I set my location (there is a link to do that in the top left corner of coles website), then clicking on the link in Price Hipster with 'Alexandria' in it changes the URL in my browser to have my location in the URL.
        Not sure if it has always been like this or even if it is relevant. Just depends on how you keep track of the URLs I guess.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 07/07/2022 - 14:29
          +1

          Thank you for that insight. It is interesting.

  • virhlpool on 07/07/2022 - 00:10

    I wonder if this website still works. It showed an error 'Service Unavailable' when I tried today.

    • HairyChickens on 07/07/2022 - 02:50

      Same here

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 07/07/2022 - 14:30
      +2

      I'm in the process of fixing some things. There may be some intermittent issues.

      • virhlpool on 07/07/2022 - 15:14

        Thanks for the great work, mate. I hope Woolworths, Coles, BigW and Chemist Warehouse stocks get tracked 'all the time' without any issues - I know currently there are some challenges with some stores though. I assume that people track items from these four stores most frequently compared to any other stores so they are of the utmost importance on your website.

  • Doyen on 31/12/2022 - 14:27

    I find more often than not the prices are out of date on Price Hipster now. If the current prices are wrong i presume that means the price history is wrong too?

    • bloomer on 31/12/2022 - 14:51

      Haven't seen out of date prices for the stores I look at.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/01/2023 - 13:31

      If the prices are out of date then the history won't necessarily be incorrect. "Out of date" prices usually just means you're seeing it between the price being updated and the crawler finding out about the price update.

      Some stores provide a product feed that includes incorrect prices, and unfortunately I have to manually sort those out.

      "More often than not" sounds a bit excessive though. I'd be interested in which retailers you're looking at.

  • wisdomtooth on 08/04/2023 - 12:16

    Unfortunately, PriceHipster emails are next to useless for me; they're just too hard to read on my phone. If only the webdesign was a little more reactive…

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 08/04/2023 - 18:44
      +1

      Yeah the emails definitely need an overhaul. I'm having a hard time finding time at the moment to work on it. Hopefully I'll get there eventually.

      • wisdomtooth on 08/04/2023 - 19:29

        I'd help if I could, but unfortunately design is not my forte. But, as I have your willing ear, the site's design is not much better on mobiles either (the font is too small, the padding too wide, the thumbnails too small, etc). If the site is making you money, perhaps it's a matter of farming out a whole design overhaul to Argentina.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/04/2023 - 14:19
          +2

          It's not, so outsourcing is not an option.

          I am actually halfway through recreating the whole site with a new design. Just gotta finish.

          • wisdomtooth on 09/04/2023 - 15:15

            @jazoom: Eagerly looking forward to it.

            • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/04/2023 - 16:27
              +1

              @wisdomtooth: Me too. Unfortunately this is the busiest I've ever been at the moment. Got a lot of stuff going on.

      • VQLD on 12/07/2023 - 10:35

        great tool. Thank you!

  • fredblogs on 10/05/2023 - 15:54

    Dan Murphy's no longer available?

  • tryagain on 13/07/2023 - 06:03

    What Store/Area are the Bunnings prices based on, looks like a decent discount is showing for the Ozito PXC 18V Drill Driver Kit, but a quick check around of a few stores and it's still showing as full price.

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 13/07/2023 - 08:34

      I'm pretty sure it's not set to any particular store

  • goober on 21/07/2023 - 12:59

    What happened to ASOS search results?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 22/07/2023 - 10:59

      I can't remember the details but the product feed was not available I think.

  • FlexBargain on 29/08/2023 - 15:12

    Yo
    Some sort of error accessing the site ATM. What's the go bro?

    Do you think Gerry Harvey is involved in some way?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 30/08/2023 - 07:23

      Just a network issue

  • NitroJolt on 04/09/2023 - 14:32

    Site appears to be down? Getting Error 1033 Argo Tunnel error

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 05/09/2023 - 05:19

      Same network issue. Getting new hardware to fix it.

  • RubysResource on 06/12/2023 - 15:15

    I've noticed Coles has been missing for a few days… is this permanent?

    Any way we can see historic price data / price alert settings for previously tracked items?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 06/12/2023 - 16:18

      Not permanent. I'll see if I can get some time this weekend to look into it.

      Currently there is no way to see historical items.

  • sintro on 15/12/2023 - 23:43

    Can't access the site

    Error 1033 Ray ID: 835ec4d9b970a7e9 • 2023-12-15 12:42:51 UTC
    Argo Tunnel error

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2023 - 23:58
      +1

      Fixed!

  • easternculture on 25/12/2023 - 13:02
    +1

    @jazoom
    Website is down

    Error 1033
    Ray ID: 83ad80a25c4649ba •
    2023-12-25 02:02:32 UTC
    Argo Tunnel error

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 26/12/2023 - 14:40

      Thanks mate. There was an issue just after I left for a Christmas do.

  • gaber on 05/01/2024 - 16:21

    Seems to be down again:

    Error 1033
    Ray ID: 8409460da866a819 •
    2024-01-05 05:20:43 UTC
    Argo Tunnel error

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 06/01/2024 - 17:34

      Yup, still trying to figure out why it intermittently does this. I can't reproduce it though. :S

  • Axytrix on 21/02/2024 - 17:31
    +2

    I’m frequently filters Bunnings, and wondering if there is any way of excluding Marketplace items which seem to populate the results? I’m assuming likely not?

    • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 25/02/2024 - 08:56
      +2

      That's a popular request. I'm wondering if I should just remove the Bunnings Marketplace listings entirely.

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