I (Re-) Built an Alcohol Search Engine Called GrogPrices to Find The Best Local Alcohol Pricing and Specials

AssociatedLthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 08:04

Hello people of OzBargain,

Way back in 2008 I launched a website to search for the cheapest Alcohol around Australia. It was abandoned after a few years as life took over and I didn't have time to update it. But now it is back!

https://www.grogprices.com.au

GrogPrices allows you to:

  • Quickly search for products and receive all (or most) of the current prices around you
  • Find local stores (that you might not know existed, i.e. bottle shops in pubs)
  • Find products you might not know existed

GrogPrices currently:

  • Indexes 3000+ bottle shops (BWS, Dan Murphys, Liqorland, First Choice, Bottle-O, Duncans, Bottler and more)
  • 15,000+ products

There will be stores missing (getting a compete list of stores is hard and all the lists published are either out of date of behind multiple paywalls). But I'm working on getting more and more added as they become known to me.

The future of GrogPrices:

I have a few ideas pinned for the future, current list looks like:

  • Price History (coming very soon)
  • Clean up search page (search an area, sort on best savings from RRP)
  • Browser extension to check other stores pricing when ordering online
  • Mobile app to quickly check pricing using camera
  • Integration with Alcohol Delivery services
  • Price Alerts to let you know when a product comes on sale
  • Reviews, Pub Listings, Events etc etc

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but hopefully it might be somewhat useful for anyone looking for quick alcohol pricing!

Would love to know what you think or if you have any suggestions about what features to add.

General Discussion

Related Stores

grogprices.com.au
grogprices.com.au

Comments

  • Rock Rohnson on 04/06/2021 - 08:16

    How exciting!

    I've been using boozle but it stopped working about 6 months ago. Great work!

  • Rock Rohnson on 04/06/2021 - 08:18

    Just took a look and had a thought. The map is great but a simple list view would be excellent :)

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 08:30
      +2

      Great idea. Will add it to the list.

  • Haydos90 on 04/06/2021 - 08:22
    +1

    Just tried a few searches and at least in my area, it only appears to be showing results for Liquorland, even for things in stock at a nearby BWS and First Choice.

    Also it would be good if you could change your search location if you get a search with no results, the 'change search location' button only seems to show up after a successful search. I feel like you'd be more likely to want to try searching a different area if you come up with no results.

    Love the idea of the site though, saves me comparing prices across a few different websites.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 08:31
      +1

      Ah, might be missing stores in that area. Will take a look

      The other way to change location is go into the "stores" area in the Navigation and you can change from there.

      Bad UX though not showing with no results, I'll add it to the list.

      Thanks.

  • Iangh on 04/06/2021 - 08:31
    +1

    Boozle is dead, log live Grogprices!

  • djsweet on 04/06/2021 - 08:42
    +1

    The no-geolocation pop-up seems to contain some debug information in the title.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 08:49

      Will have a look, thanks!

  • ManicD on 04/06/2021 - 09:01
    +1

    GrogLog was taken?

    • Lurk Hartog on 05/06/2021 - 08:06
      +2

      I took one this morning.

  • SnowDragon on 04/06/2021 - 09:08

    Mercury Hard Cider and Mercury Draught Cider comes up with only one location around me.
    But the crushed raspberry comes up with 4 locations.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 09:24

      Were the 3 additional results one Chain? It is either out of stock, or, for whatever reason we don't know about it.

      I'll do a comparison of prices of that product just to see whats missing.

      Thanks!

      • SnowDragon on 04/06/2021 - 09:39

        Where they sell the crushed raspberry, they would also sell hard cider

        Also does your Dan Murphys script take into account member price? Not that it matters for the crushed raspberry, but your price is off by 70c

        • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 10:13

          So at the moment it just looks for all the prices listed on the page and grabs them all. I'm looking at changing it to have Members Price, Catalog Special ad the rest clearly separated. Issue is then making the pricing generic throughout all the sites.

          Will add it on the radar, maybe a price "type" with it clearly listed might be the best way to go.

  • Stacey23 on 04/06/2021 - 09:55
    +1

    What are the chance's you can pull from sites like
    thewhiskylist.com.au to extend the range and online retailers?
    I completely understand this is a massive job and I appreciate that someone's doing it. Thank you from all the drinkers. :)

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 10:15
      +1

      So we can pull from online sites (if the integration is built). Showing those results on the map is the weird bit, as they would have to be at the top of the results, which we can do.

      If there are any online retailers you would like, let me know. I'll build a list of things to tackle, Boozbud is really the only one I've targeted so far.

  • rompastompa on 04/06/2021 - 10:14
    +2

    Good work, need a replacement for Boozle!

    A few points in the first few minutes of browsing:

    Bugs:

    • It never populates if you don't set a location (Browser location is denied by default, I needed to go to Stores > Change Search location). I suggest you put something on there that detects whether a location has been set when you search, otherwise it just continues to 'load' - Can't expect the user to start browsing around trying to find the location button;
    • Oh No! while loading, before populating the results;
    • Your menu header disappears if <1024px;
    • Pricing next to the map disappears if <1024px;
    • Small bug that only showed an inch of the map until I resized (Couldn't reproduce, though - might be because I was resizing browser);
    • Incorrect locations shown (example: Moree);
    • There's a few 403's trying to retrieve images, might need to change perms on your s3 bucket (example: 150 Lashes);
    • Missing products in stores (example: Stella Artois is only shown in Liquorland);
    • Incorrect capitalisation mid sentence/grammar/typos (examples: Spririts, Its, Alcohol, Suggestions, etc).

    Features:

    • When searching through categories, having the lowest price set under the product so you can see what's the lowest/price point before going to the product;
    • Creating an account that's not linked to a google account;
    • Having some information about what creating an account actually gives you (additional features; eg price notification coming soon);
    • Setting a range (eg. 5/10/20km);
    • Integration with cash back sites (unless you're using your own affliates);
    • +all the features you've listed above ;).
    • rompastompa on 04/06/2021 - 11:17

      You could also reach out to Jazoom (Price Hipster) and tightarse (Cash Rewards) and see if they're interested in contributing ideas, as they would have extensive online retail store knowledge.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 11:17
      +1

      Thanks so much for the feedback. All of these are great ideas and I'll see what I can do.

      Will look at fixing the UX asap. The images are probably broken as we haven't pulled them locally, currently we are set to attempt a request and if it breaks we show our image loader component. Images slowly move their way over as to not overload any ingest.

      Again, thanks for the suggestions. I'll add them to the growing list :)

  • Lexan on 04/06/2021 - 10:32

    Blue label search shows only 2 places in Melbourne cbd where there are at least 10 bottle shops. Needs a better search engine

  • afoveht on 04/06/2021 - 12:12

    Thank you. Great work, will be most useful.

    A feature I'd love is being able to set a max price and then seeing only the locations that meet that price, or perhaps displaying them in another colour. (Unless I'm desperate I only buy at or below certain trigger prices, and stock up then).

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 14:47

      Yea that sounds like a good filter to bring into the results page. I think price range and "is special" are good ones to start with.

      Will add it all to the list.

      Thanks

  • woodg on 04/06/2021 - 12:20

    Thanks for creating this.

    Just wanted to let you know that you are not picking up the Liqourland in Orange, NSW, 2800.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 13:02

      Thanks for letting me know, I'll go through and add it

  • pufffdragon on 04/06/2021 - 12:35
    +1

    I wish there was an app to calculate how much alcohol cost per 100ml or Ltr.
    Let's say, a Grogulator.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 13:01
      +1

      On the to-do list for sure. Just to find out if the best deal is Cans, Bottles or a Block.

      Was going to then further calculate mL and % alcohol so you can make sure you are getting the most bang for you buck, but that might be going too far.

      Thanks for the feedback!

      • relentless on 04/06/2021 - 14:12

        Some cans and bottles are made in different places so this skews value.

  • Drakesy on 04/06/2021 - 14:08

    I used to use boozle, did this go under?

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 14:44

      Boozle has been up and down over the last 6 months, not sure what is going on.

  • valleyrain on 04/06/2021 - 14:31

    It works well, good work on the site!

    You could have a separate field on the home page for location - this way you don't need the prompt or request the browser for location.
    It would be helpful if the pins on the map show address as well.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 14:45

      Both good ideas, will add them to the list.

      Thanks

  • Peter Enis on 04/06/2021 - 14:41

    Looks good. However, First Choice Salisbury QLD 4107 appears to be missing from my search results.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 04/06/2021 - 14:45
      +1

      Thanks for letting me know, my Coles store list is slightly incomplete, I'll see if i can find a way to get a more up to date list.

      I'll add that First Choice manually.

      Thanks

  • peteru on 04/06/2021 - 16:01
    +1

    For beer, you have a Craft Beer category, which contains beers made by such reputable brewers as Woolworths!

    It would be nice to change that category to show beers from Independent Brewers to help people select quality products that actually support local businesses. You should be able to get the definitive list from https://www.iba.org.au/

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 05/06/2021 - 12:06

      Yep this is for sure something I need to look into. For now I'm grouping as per how the bottle shops group the products. So they are a bit skewed to their own product line. I'm hoping to make it more generic (and accurate) in a later version.

      Thanks for the feedback

  • peteru on 04/06/2021 - 16:07

    BTW: You may want to change:
    Indian Pale Ale to
    India Pale Ale.

    IPA maybe be even better.

  • TilacVIP on 05/06/2021 - 09:27

    Did a search from the main page and it just sits there with the busy "spinning ring"

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 05/06/2021 - 12:03

      Sounds like something got a bit busted. Do you mind letting me know what you searched for and ill look into it

      • TilacVIP on 05/06/2021 - 13:27

        typed in "Carlton Dry" [without the quotes] in the main page search box

    • rompastompa on 09/06/2021 - 14:43

      I noticed that too. It happens when there's no location set.

      Go to Stores > Change Search location, and then it'll start populating.

  • OnlyifMyPrice on 05/06/2021 - 10:46

    Hi, great idea. Looks like you’re getting some good UAT here too. A couple of comments from a quick search using iPhone:
    - I searched Pepperjack and am happy to buy a few varieties of it but the app forces me to choose one tier and variety. Can you open up the search just on that term or does it give you too many results? If too many results can you only the show the ones in the bottom % of price range? Noting that some wine brands have tiers so the user would need to search for Pepperjack Graded if they want the higher tier with all varieties
    - the heat map colours seem to be based on a set price - is this the RRP? I was expecting a green pin for the cheapest and orange and red with increasing price. If you search for Peppertree in 5000 Adelaide the cheapest is $14.10 and others $22 but they all show orange. The PetrolSpy app may help you get some ideas, although it annoys me that the colours are unintuitive - red is better
    - the Feedback button gets in the way of the X to cancel the postcode if you want to search an alternate area (I hadn’t turned location on). Scrolling to get it out the way only helps slightly
    - you definitely need an area radius picker like FB Marketplace
    - there’s a grammatical mistake in the initial blurb - from memory, find should be found
    - initial impression on mobile is that the look and feel when you first open the page could be better and more seamless, looks slightly clunky
    Well done. It’ll be a great resource

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 05/06/2021 - 12:05
      +1

      Awesome feedback thanks.

      Grouping of products is something I want to do, but I can't quite work out where to draw the line, as some products work well as replacements, but some are totally different despite seeming exactly the same. Will look into doing it.

      The colouring of the map isn't too clear, Went with Red for Special and Organise for normal price, green I think is probably a better set. Will make the change.

      Will add the other notes to the list to look into. Thankyou

  • Ramrunner on 18/06/2021 - 10:30

    Hey - just for laughs I tried it and looked for Zeffer Apple Crumble Cider.

    Typing just Zeffer populated it in a drop down - excellent.

    Asked for my location - allowed it.

    No Results.

    BWS just up Nicholson Road from me stocks it so is it not pulling data from BWS?

    My postcode is 6121 - it doesn't show me the geolocation radius of what it's searching so can't help you diagnose further at this stage???

    Love the idea though please do keep it up.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 13/08/2021 - 18:16

      Yep, this might be from missing a scrape on that specific product, I do a bunch of Name transformations to try and get everything in line but sometimes it does not work.

      I'll have a look at this product because it sounds tasty and I want to try and see if I can someway get it to pick up BWS in a bit more detail.

      Thanks for the feedback.

  • Loza1011 on 28/06/2021 - 15:42

    Would be good to see more than just the chains pricing in here… heaps of independent bottleshops that are often cheaper than the big guys are being missed..
    Liquor Boss, Local Liquor, Liquor & Co, Foodworks, Super Cellars, Little Bottler, Liquor Legends, Star Liquor just to name a few..

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 13/08/2021 - 18:14

      This is all in the pipeline. Most of our prices are picked up from scraping, so unless I can find a data source its hard. Talking to my local, there is a price list but not a public one, nor is there a way to get that information.

      I'll add all these chains to the list of people to reach out to, just to see If I can get a baseline.

      Thanks for the Feedback

  • glub on 29/06/2021 - 16:26

    Doesn't seem to be working for me, or has very limited search database. I'm in the eastern suburbs and it states only Liquorland sell Jamesons, but there is like 10 other bottle-os including Dan Murphys that don't come up.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 13/08/2021 - 18:13

      Yea, Looks like I'm are missing some data there. Our Dan's pickup is a bit sketchy, but I'm working on trying to make it somewhat more reliable.

      Thanks for pointing it out, I'll us this as a test case for seeing if things are working smooth.

  • virtual81 on 19/10/2021 - 15:51

    Mild necro here, but am in SE Vic and searching as follows…
    https://www.grogprices.com.au/search/baileys-original-irish-…
    gives nothing.

    Tried major nearby postcodes like Dandenong and Frankston.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 24/12/2021 - 00:45

      Ooft, will have a look at it. seems like we don't have scrapers that covers that area. Will work on it. Thanks for the heads up.

  • ritzo90 on 18/08/2022 - 20:47

    This still going? I see the sites up but not sure if it's still being developed and I was curious.

    • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 19/08/2022 - 22:04

      Yep, still going, still working on getting some new features and more stores/prices uploaded.

      Currently in the works is a number of missed stores nationwide as well as a data cleanup to make searching a whole bunch easier.

      A few new features on the way as well, but nothing set in stone. This is still just a side-project so due to work schedule, I'm unable to work on it full time.

      • sssx on 15/01/2023 - 14:11

        as an (encouraging) fyi, tried two searches, prices (single/6pack/case) listed didn't quite match prices on retail site (dan murphys). they were between $0 and $15? different, so I'm assuming price changes post-scraping and not re-scraped yet

        also if I can add suggestions to your todo list :P
        trim all whitespace from start/end of the search term (easy)
        remove characters that may not be useful (maybe more involved, can comment more in DM if you want)

        e.g.
        i pasted "white rabbit - white ale" and found nothing. removed the - and it found them.
        having a space at the start " corona extra beer" or the end "corona extra beer " stops it finding the beer

        • Associatedthethunderbox @ grogprices.com.au on 16/05/2023 - 22:21

          Thanks for sending over some exact searches, hoping to have the new search system out soon that i am hoping will fix all of these issues.

          Thanks again!

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