OzBargain Feature - Deal Reminder

scotty on 07/11/2011 - 09:25
Last edited 09/08/2019 - 11:03 by 2 other users

People often posted deals that you are interested in, but a few weeks in advance. For example the current 7-11 Free Slurpee deal — it was posted more than 3 weeks ago. For those who are disciplined, you might record that in your calendar so you won't miss it. However for the most of us, wouldn't it be nice if someone somehow can remind us when the actual deal is on?!

Hence idea of "Deal Reminder". If you come across a deal that you are interested but might be still weeks away, you can add it to your list of reminders. OzBargain will then remind you later that those deals are on. Hopefully that means no more missed sales!

Adding a Deal Reminder

A link/button "Reminder" is available on the deal page for logged-in users. Click on it will bring up a menu to let you set the reminder date, in the form of either

• x days from today, or
• y days before expiry (provided that the deal has its expiry date set)

You can also "Remove Reminder" if it has been set for that deal.

Reminder Block on Sidebar

All the reminded deals will be shown inside a block on the sidebar on the home page only, within the duration of the reminder date and deal's expiry date.

So when you come to OzBargain first thing in the morning you can see all the deals that you need to take action today. Deals will remain in the reminder block until they expire, or until you remove them from the reminder list.

Reminder List

To see all the deals that you have set the reminder,

• Click on "My Account" to go to your profile page
• Click on "edit" to edit your profile
• Click on "reminders" to go to your reminder listing page

You can do bulk removal of reminders there.

Newsletter

If you are an OzBargain newsletter subscriber (yes you should! :) you will also get the reminded deals near the very top of your daily email.

Beta Software

Finally, at OzBargain we love to push out new features earlier to get some feedbacks. That also means it might be buggy. So please use this forum thread to report issues and to discuss this new feature.

Updated thread 22/9/15

Update 2019: See the wiki for the latest information

• 

  samfisher5986 on 07/11/2011 - 11:52

  This is an awesome feature, nice work!

  Also, what do you think about adding a feature so when posting a bargain you can put if it expires in 7 days, or if its not active for another 7 days.

  I think it would be awesome if you upvoted a deal not yet active and there was an email or alert window that reminded you 24 hours before.

  • 

    scotty on 09/11/2011 - 19:20

    @samfisher5986 — sorry have been trying to understand what you meant. Sounds like you want to be able to post deals with some kind of "dynamic expiry"? What do you mean by "not active"? Group buy deals that are not activated will normally get removed by moderators.

    • 

      samfisher5986 on 09/11/2011 - 20:09

      For example

      I post a deal that is on sale from the 15th of november, I specify this in a box when posting the bargain.

      Anyone who upvotes the bargain gets an automatic reminder in a special area on the page or in an email telling them an upvoted deal is going to be active in the next 24 hours.

      • 

        scotty on 09/11/2011 - 21:53

        +1

        Okay. Currently you do need to explicitly add a reminder so it's more than just upvote. Actually in some cases it's a good idea to make them separate.

        For example,

        • Catch of the Day Supa-mega sale in 7 days
          

          • No need to upvote now, but add reminder on the day
          • Reminder triggered on the day, but CoTD server crashed — no deal, so no upvote.

        • iPad 5 $200 from XYZ shop for the next 15 days. Bought one, upvote it and there is no need for reminder.

        And for "deal activated" to work, we need not only the expiry date of the deal but also an optional starting date. That would be something for later.

      • 

        samfisher5986 on 10/11/2011 - 10:45

        The reminder after upvoting would only be automatic if the product is not on sale yet.

        COTD is a good point, but the user could add a manual reminder in that case.

        The optional starting date could work in with expiry, clearly shows the user when it starts and ends.

• 

  Allan on 01/12/2011 - 00:28

  Great idea! Finally something to help remind as I miss alot of bargains by forgetting ><

  Would it be hard to implement another feature such as viewing a particular day for bargains?

  e.g. like giftcardsonsale calendar?

  http://www.giftcardsonsale.com.au/calendar/

  Couldn't find much on discussion besides

  http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/9038

  • 

    moocher on 02/12/2011 - 11:27

    Hi Allan, thanks for your suggestion. Due to the amount of deals per day on OzBargain, it would not be practical to have a public calendar that includes all deals. However, we like the idea, and we will look into implementing a per-user calendar that integrates the users's deal reminders. :)

  • 

    moocher on 16/01/2012 - 15:38

    Allan, there is now a beta feature where you can generate a link for your personal deal reminder calendar in iCal format. The button will only be there if you have deal reminders in place.

    Go to Settings -> Reminders tab (http://www.ozbargain.com.au/user/20057/edit/reminders).

    Hope this does what you want.

    [EDIT] See announcement here

• 

  Magic Mirror on 21/04/2013 - 17:17

  Hi, is the deal reminder page broken at the moment? It just shows one deal on a pretty bland page. There are no header/footer, or any page styling.

  Thanks.

  • 

    scotty on 21/04/2013 - 20:19

    Yes it looks broken. I will take a look tonight.

    • 

      Magic Mirror on 23/04/2013 - 22:06

      Yay! It's working again. Thank you, Scotty.

• 

  fattyboombatty on 08/07/2013 - 11:12

  Would it be possible to get the Reminder block on the sidebar added to the "New Deals" listing page? I'm such an addict I always hang out on the http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals page, not the home page, and thus miss out on my reminders.

  I would be happy for it to replace the Subscribe To Newsletter block - that's not something I need to see every day

  Thanks

• 

  muwu on 28/01/2021 - 12:32

  Is there any way to set a reminder for the same day? (soonest I can set is the next day)

  Sometimes I'll want to wait until the end of the day / that night to go back on deals that interested me earlier in the day and then decide if I want to purchase.

  That probably sounds a bit finicky!

  Some of the reasons for me personally might include:
  - being busy during the day and wanting to save some time to do a little research when I've got free time later
  - just wanting to not make an impulse buy and decide a little later
  - there might be an expiry at midnight or early the next day that I won't be free to go back to in time

  TIA

  • 

    scotty on 01/02/2021 - 09:14

    Unfortunately Reminder can only be set on a date, which gets triggered in the early morning. We did look at the possibility of having more fine grain reminder service that can be set on a specific time as well. Might be coming later…