[AMA] I'm a Top Poster on OzBargain, Store Rep for a number of Chinese Stores & recently beat cancer

Clear on 18/01/2023 - 21:20

AMA's are always a lot of fun and I thought it's about time I do one. For those who don't know I'm one of the top posters here on OzBargain with a total of 2562 deals posted since late 2014 and a whopping 749 deals posted in 2022 alone.

In the 8 years that I've been here I've been a rep for GeekBuying, Romoss, Tronsmart and a number of other stores. Over the years I've also worked as an editor at Gizchina.com and a number of other Chinese related tech websites.

On a more personal note (as many OzBargainers know) I recently fought and survived a very rare type of gastrointestinal neuroendocrine cancer that had metastasised elsewhere in my body. My original diagnosis 2 years ago was completely by surprise and while it was initially considered to be low grade, it was later found to be highly aggressive, bumped up to stage 4 and likelyhood of survival was very low.

Fortunately after a long 10 hours of surgery and a month in hospital I was "cured".

So ask away! I'll be try to be as transparent and clear as possible :)

Introduce Yourself

closed Comments

  • dcep on 18/01/2023 - 23:48

    I heard almost everyone has helicobacter in their stomach for life without knowing whilst only some got serious and turns ugly into cancer.

    Is that true?

    • Clear on 18/01/2023 - 23:52
      +1

      Research indicates that about 80-90% of people in developing countries have it and about half in developed countries. Left untreated it can cause stomach ulcers, swelling, pain and potentially stomach cancer. It's a really fascinating topic considering so many people have it and yet not everyone develops symptoms. In my case they believe it's unrelated to my cancer as it was only antibiotic resistant and not severe.

  • mmd on 18/01/2023 - 23:57
    +1

    are there any foods you need to avoid having had gut surgery?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 00:03
      +3

      Food is always a lottery since I lost half my pancreas and gallbladder. Anything high in fibre or really greasy/fatty food like meat will give me gastroparesis or severe flatulence with stomach cramps. Anything high in sugar like chocolate generally puts me in a sweat and makes me want to lie down.

      Learning to eat again and adjusting to basic food after a month of liquid and puree has certainly been one of the hardest challenges yet.

      • od810 on 19/01/2023 - 15:35

        I can understand your pain in this department. My late dad got Pancreatic Cancer and he was extremely sensitive with food especially the fatty one.

        I wish you speedy recovery and all the best in the future.

  • Barca123 on 19/01/2023 - 00:18

    Great to hear you are well Clear, hope you remain healthy for many years to come.

    My question for you is: if there was anything you would like to see be done differently or changed here on OzB what would it be?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 09:22
      +3

      Remove vote averages at OzBargain. It sounds like something so small but the impact it's having is so big. There's a serious amount of drama happening behind the scenes with posters and a lot of it leads back to getting the highest votes, highest vote average and of course… money. The average OzBargainer really isn't aware of what's going on.

      It's even at the point where store reps are being told not to talk deals with people (like myself) because some believe they have exclusive rights over deals for those stores and no one else. Of course any rep that does this just ends up hurting their profits so they've got to be pretty stupid. It's extremely petty and immature.

  • kerfuffle on 19/01/2023 - 07:32

    You going to go to the Sydney OzBargain meetup this year?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 09:19
      +1

      Yep. I was really bummed they were happening when I was in hospital. Fortunately I was able to meetup with some OzBargainers and staff prior to my surgery.

  • 2enjoy on 19/01/2023 - 07:38
    +1

    Thanks for your posts and thanks for opening up about your situation. You have a fantastic attitude and we appreciate what you’ve done.

  • Stopback on 19/01/2023 - 08:27
    +1

    When you post your deal have you even used the product and know it's good.

    Are there any deals you won't post because your know they are just junk.

    .

    Also do you find that it turns posting into ozbargain more as work then just pure pleasure as you are under pressure to get votes from your deals

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 09:31
      +1

      When you post your deal have you even used the product and know it's good.

      For most deals I haven't tested the products. As you start posting a lot you tend to learn what's good and what isn't.

      Are there any deals you won't post because your know they are just junk.

      This is a big thing when talking deals with stores. Often reps will have ideas on products they want to discount and I find it's either a crappy product or they just can't drop the price low enough. It's pretty funny to see someone else post it later and it ends up flopping.

      Also do you find that it turns posting into ozbargain more as work then just pure pleasure as you are under pressure to get votes from your deals

      Certainly for Associated posts. The main goal is to hit 25 votes so the deal makes it to front page resulting in more clicks and sales. Otherwise votes don't really matter that much to me. So many deals can get <25 votes and hundreds of sales.

  • Brazilian-gainer on 19/01/2023 - 08:31
    +2

    God bless you and your health mate..long life for you!

  • Cheaplikethebird on 19/01/2023 - 08:40

    Did you post on AtomicMPC back in the day?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 09:32

      I remember the magazine. Never knew they had forums.

  • tik tok on 19/01/2023 - 08:46

    When you look at a product's review - are you immediately able to tell if its from a bot/factory?
    Any tips on how a layman could identify a genuine/fake review?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 13:56
      +1

      Fakespot is really your best option for finding them.

      AliExpress reviews are always a laugh. You get coins (used for discounts) if you write a review on products you have delivered. So a lot of reviews end up being Russians sharing a picture of the unopened package or sometimes their own selfies saying "Received the product but haven't opened it yet. 5 stars".

  • mandelbrot on 19/01/2023 - 08:46

    Good to hear you've been the cancer mate 🙌

  • Archi on 19/01/2023 - 08:48

    glad to hear things are looking better mate, and was a pleasure meeting you many years ago with tronsmart prizes at the meetup

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 09:18

      I'll have a few more of those at the next meetup. Tronsmart are always happy to give out prizes.

  • KaTst3R on 19/01/2023 - 08:50

    Congrats on beating an illness. Is this your main job or just a side hobby?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 09:18
      +1

      Side hustle. I work in healthcare as my main profession.

      • pinkybrain on 20/01/2023 - 16:52

        what does the job involve doing or what is the job title?

  • Melencir on 19/01/2023 - 08:58
    +1

    Glad to hear you beat cancer!

  • reactor-au on 19/01/2023 - 09:35
    -1

    Glad you made it, I'm starting to lose count of people I know lost to cancer.
    We should have spent those billions of dollars wasted on COVID on cancer instead, at least mRNA might provide a use as personalised cancer therapy one day.

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 09:46
      +5

      The money pumped into mRNA vaccines has certainly provided breakthroughs for cancer, including the Tassie Devil tumours.

      I'm all for raising awareness and this AMA certainly does it. Shockingly neuroendocrine tumours are the kind of cancer that so few have heard about and yet 2022 statistics in Australia shows that it's overtaken pancreatic cancer and thyroid cancer. Everyone's heard of those two before.

      • reactor-au on 19/01/2023 - 10:15
        +1

        We can no doubt blame the extensive list of forever chemicals and pesticides and herbicides in our food and environment, they are proved endocrine disruptors.
        /2c

  • BigBirdy on 19/01/2023 - 10:00

    Thanks @clear, I appreciate all the work you put into OzBargain, and wish you the best of health following your cancer scare. Cheers mate

  • echelon6 on 19/01/2023 - 10:05

    Congratulations, hope you live long. Thank you for your deals.

  • rlay3 on 19/01/2023 - 10:21

    Congrats mate, and thank you for all you do!

    What's with the profile picture? I always mistaken you for jv.

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 13:48
      +1

      jv loves it when I make parodies of his avatar. Some other members will complain to the mods about it but not him.

  • htc on 19/01/2023 - 10:37
    +2

    Congrat on beating cancer, there is a Chinese saying if you survived a disaster, fortune will come later.

    BTW, despite what happened to your life, you gave a lot to the ozbargain community, and probably elsewhere, you generate a lot of good karma. When you help others, it will always come back to you more than you give. Half of battling cancer is your mental health, you certainly have a very optimistic outlook in life. Have an awesome day!

  • tsunamisurfer on 19/01/2023 - 12:00
    +1

    Clear, you have helped me find great deals on 2 tablet devices.

    Thank you so much.

    Wishing you all the best in your recovery.

  • Sezza on 19/01/2023 - 12:39
    +1

    Congrats on beating cancer
    ! What were the symptoms you had that made you go to the doctor to check things up?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 12:40
      +1

      Found by accident. Subsequently the symptoms of cancer itself were more consistent with IBS later. It was an active tumour producing huge levels of serotonin and that wrecks the bowels.

  • peterw1 on 19/01/2023 - 13:20

    congrats on beating cancer. hope it doesn't come back.
    I think you share the same type of cancer that took steve jobs, but he chose to look at alternate therapies rather than conventional treatment and the delay resulted in its spread and his death.
    Your post is a good reminder to those influencer and other fools who say 'they know their body'. If they claim they do, get them to write down that they will never ever get cancer. They can't, so always poo poo these people.The only good thing about cancer is that unlike humans it doesn't discriminate.

    How has having cancer changed your view on life, are you more patient in life? ie less likely to get cranky while driving.
    All the best

    • May4th on 19/01/2023 - 13:21

      steve jobs had pancreatic cancer, it was different. very low survival rate for pancreatic

      • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 13:31
        +2

        A common misconception is that Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer and that's not entirely true. He had pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer and that's quite different. If it's treated early you're more likely to survive than pancreatic cancer. Sadly in his case it was too late by the time he took it seriously.

        • May4th on 19/01/2023 - 13:52

          Ah yes i stand corrected, very sad and glad yours was more amenable to treatment

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 13:33
      +2

      Yep his was in the pancreas while mine was in the ampulla. Though my pancreas was already beginning to shrink and the tumour was extremely close to being inside it.

      I heard all the same alternative bs that he was doing before. There was no way I was going to do that. Get it all chopped out while you still can.

      • 1Kenobi on 20/01/2023 - 09:27

        Interesting …I didnt even know I had an ampulla until now.

        • Clear on 20/01/2023 - 15:31
          +1

          Cancer is quite common there - just not NETs. Had it just been in the ampulla they'd put a lasso around it and off it goes. Then you continue as normal, albeit a lot more bile going into the intestine.

  • BendBridge on 19/01/2023 - 13:23

    Thanks for all the posts. Glad to hear that you have fought off cancer. I had an operation to remove my stage 3-4 prostate cancer 6 months ago, hope I can say the same after a year or so.

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 13:33

      I'll probably end up with that eventually. How's recovery going?

      • BendBridge on 19/01/2023 - 19:31
        +1

        I hope not.

        My recovery has been going on pretty well. The operation was the easy part but the incontinent side effect is the hardest to deal with. Imagine the first 3 month of totally no control to the waterworks. Luckily the last blood test has shown no traces of cancer cells, i.e. PSA = 0. (To me, the first shock was the cancer news, the second shock was surgery bills even with private health insurance - but that's another story :))

        • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 20:23

          Glad to here the recovery is going well. The incontinent side effects would truly be horrible. Was this one of the more experimental kinds of treatment? I know people with prostate cancer and they mentioned Medicare/insurance won't cover it all.

          • BendBridge on 20/01/2023 - 10:49

            @Clear: The exact term for the treatment is "Robot Assisted Radical Prostatectomy" (RARP). It has been around for a while now, so it's not experimental. Even with private medical insurance, the surgery plus anaesthetic cost is over $10K out of pocket. In order to understand how the charging system works between Medicare and private insurance, I went to Reddit for help. Here is the link if you are interested.

            • Clear on 22/01/2023 - 20:32

              @BendBridge: Ah yep the robots - I've seen a lot of those in my job. I'm still cautious about them and worry how they can easily go so wrong.

              Interesting reddit post. So the surgeon never provided an informed financial consent? There's plenty of good surgeons around that charge significantly higher than everyone else. I've seen some really good plastic surgeons get attacked by other plastic surgeons because they're too cheap.

              • BendBridge on 23/01/2023 - 22:25

                @Clear: The robot punched 6 keyholes in my stomach :)

                The surgeon's office just gave me a price of the surgery and asked me to talk to Medibank. I guess that's not an "informed financial consent"?

  • AdamFury on 19/01/2023 - 13:40
    +2

    I don't know if I should be thanking you for all of the extremely necessary items I've bought over the years from GeekBuying, Romoss, Tronsmart, AliExpress and god knows where else but I appreciate it! Thank you for your contributions here and fantastic to hear you have overcome your cancer. Wishing you all the best with your health moving forward and here's to many more OzBargain posts!

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 13:50
      +1

      Hopefully we'll be able to sit down and talk at the next meetup. Instead of saying hi in passing at the end like a few years ago.

  • BewareOfThe Dog on 19/01/2023 - 14:37

    Thank you for your posts, and I'm glad your cancer treatment was a success.
    Admittedly every time I see your avatar I mistake it for JV, with the lack ofbold, being the only difference (and dad jokes).

  • samcro on 19/01/2023 - 15:26
    +1

    From one cancer survivor to another (prostate), congratulations on your recovery. Appreciate your deals.

  • nGu on 19/01/2023 - 15:42
    +1

    congrats on the cancer treatment. i remember doing a H. Pylori test back in the day, no food or drink the entire night then they give me one tiny cup of water with the test tablet and when i drank it down i did a refreshing "ahhhhh~~" gasp like i drank a beer…..doc looked at me funny :((

    anyway, what is your job called and what kind of things do you do? it's so unique. also, i thought you were fluent in chinese coordinating these deals but when i think about it the chinese sellers need to speak english since they deal with countries all over the world

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 20:28
      +1

      i drank it down i did a refreshing "ahhhhh~~" gasp like i drank a beer…..doc looked at me funny :((

      Yep I remember those tests well. I used to think it was refreshing until I had to get an MRI a day after my surgery. I'd been fasting from food and drink so the first drink I was allowed was a cup of water and contrast dye. Contrast dye is easily the most degusting thing to drink and the thought of it makes me gag. But after two days of no food or water it was the best feeling ever.

      anyway, what is your job called and what kind of things do you do? it's so unique

      What I do here on OzBargain is purely a side hobby. If you wanted to be more technical myself and pretty much most other posters are "influencers" except OzBargain is our platform instead of Insta/Facey/TikTok.

      As for my day job I'm an IT Systems Engineer in the Healthcare industry. That's a whole different world to this. A very fun, difficult and rewarding career.

  • tessel on 19/01/2023 - 15:43

    Glad to have you here. Has your outlook on life changed? Is money as important as before?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 20:32
      +3

      Pre-cancer I was a very stressed person and it had a very serious impact on my physical and mental health. Now that I'm cancer free I'm trying to live as stress free as possible.

      My whole outlook on life has changed so much. From when I was initially diagnosed and to when they said it was unlikely that I'd survive I certainly experienced every emotion. Everyone around me certainly wondered why I was so chilled about it all - I seemed pretty content with everything. Truthfully I had accepted that if this was the end and I was going to die, then this is my destiny. There's so many others in the world that suffer so much than all of us here and I shouldn't take my life for granted. I lived a good life and while I certainly didn't achieve everything I wanted…. it's been fun.

      I certainly went through the bucket list and travelled the country earlier last year in response.

      • 1Kenobi on 20/01/2023 - 09:30

        What was on the bucket list?
        Has it changed?

  • Deridas on 19/01/2023 - 16:08
    +1

    Hi, I was wondering what age you are?
    Curious to know what age people are getting these tumours.
    Thanks.

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 20:34
      +1

      I'm under 30. Traditionally a neuroendocrine tumour isn't aggressive and slow growing. It can take decades for symptoms to appear or for it to be discovered, or in most cases it's not found until after someone has died.

      Mine was purely found by accident. We don't know how long it's been growing. It could have been there 2 years ago or even 10 years ago. Unfortunately in my case I had the aggressive kind and a year after my diagnosis I was visibly sick and experiencing symptoms.

      • CVonC on 19/01/2023 - 23:51

        Geez man. Way too young! But maybe that's also got something to do with your recovery (besides the amazing professionals ofc). There's gotta be something in the water down there in Tassie too :)

  • Homr on 19/01/2023 - 16:18

    How many weeks did you take off during your battle with cancer? was it all covered via sick leave?

    What are the side effects from your surgery?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 20:40
      +1

      I was off work for 7 weeks. My surgeon is high volume and said that I've had the second best recovery he's ever seen and it would have number 1 if I didn't have pancreatic fistula and pancreatitis. It's taken a good 3 months for me to feel normal.

      Surgery resulted in a very rare kind of complication that's still crippling today. I suffered minor median nerve damage to my left arm, about 70% median nerve damage to my right arm (the whole nerve) and damage to my right femoral nerve. I have carpal tunnel syndrome without it being carpal and the only cure is "time". No other treatment available.

      Other side effects really comes down to diet. Too much fat, too much sugar, anything with high fibre will put me on the toilet. Sometimes my stomach sends me the wrong signals too. It says it's hungry when it's full and full when it's hungry so that's been a challenge to manage. The trick is having regular small meals around the same time each day.

      • 1Kenobi on 20/01/2023 - 09:32

        Oouch nerve pain :-(

  • Bappy on 19/01/2023 - 16:20
    +1

    Glad you are doing well now Clear.
    All the very best and take care mate.

  • Cronium on 19/01/2023 - 16:36
    +1

    Hi Clear,

    I had no idea, but congratulations!

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 20:41

      I bought lottery tickets post OP and didn't win. Figured I've used up all my luck already.

      • Cronium on 19/01/2023 - 20:57

        You can tell everyone now that you are "winning at life", literally true.

        • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 21:05

          People think I'm being morbid when I say I'm on my second life. Technically true when you die and come back :P

  • cerealsmok3r on 19/01/2023 - 18:19
    +1

    Hey Clear! Love to see your deals come through and it really shows that at the end of the day, its about sharing deals to a community that enjoys it! Congratulations on overcoming one of the major hurdles to your life. I've certainly been through a similar experience where its all too confusing, lonely but there's some innate desire to continue pushing through. I have a few questions if you don't mind answering them:

    What do you think of the quality of deals that you have posted or ozbargain has seen over the years? Have they regressed in quality and increased in frequency? What has changed?

    What would the future state look like for deals? Are you anticipating any major changes with the way that companies set up their loss leaders, make pricing errors or how the community organises groupbuys?

    Lastly, what has been the most memorable time you have been a part of or experienced with the ozbargain community?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 21:43
      +2

      What do you think of the quality of deals that you have posted or ozbargain has seen over the years? Have they regressed in quality and increased in frequency? What has changed?

      It was certainly very different 10 years ago until now. Australia was quite slow to go online and I remember Myer closing their online store after hours. I feel a lot of top posters focus on what gets them front page and the most votes, so we see a lot of the same ColesworthAldi specials and ebooks shared quite frequently. Cashback has certainly become bigger and more competitive, plus eBay shifting from sitewide sales to price jacked selected items only.

      When it comes to my speciality of Chinese gadgets it's changed drastically. 8 years ago Android was an immature operating system and there was a massive influx of Android phone and tablet manufacturers. Not to mention brands like Xiaomi were really small and sites like Dealextreme flogging off cheap low quality crap was popular. Dropshipping wasn't much of a thing either. I'd say now we can get higher quality products from China with a lot more established brands.

      What would the future state look like for deals? Are you anticipating any major changes with the way that companies set up their loss leaders, make pricing errors or how the community organises groupbuys?

      Predicting the future is so hard. I can see potential for Amazon getting bigger and better like the US counterpart, while eBay continues to fall behind. eBay's whole goal right now is getting as many people onto eBay Plus as possible and deals like my Yeelight post was intended to achieve this goal, but instead resulted in minimal new members and a massive amount of sales in a short time. Infact they've blown so much of their marketing budget in the last few months there's not a whole lot of repeat sales to occur for a while.

      Now that everyone is trying to forget that COVID exists a lot of stores are trying to recoup losses from COVID. I can see prices continuing to jump, especially with how the economy and global supply chain is going. Plus you have NVIDIA making stupid decisions like the 40xx cards being overpriced crap.

      Group buys are far less common now than they used to be. I was surprised to see one being organised with that HK eBay seller a while ago.

      Lastly, what has been the most memorable time you have been a part of or experienced with the ozbargain community?

      Group meetups have always been the most memorable times. The big official meetups in November are always chaotic so I'll often have smaller meetups with people when I travel to Melb/Bris/Syd or when they come to my state.

  • BuyoTheCat on 19/01/2023 - 19:18

    Congrats on beating cancer!

    How many chinese branded tablets do you own. Do you always buy one from your deals?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 20:50

      Funny you should ask that… I really don't own many. Currently my main driver is the Blackview Tab 11 that I picked up at release. I don't care about Netflix or gaming too much (that's what the phone is for) so it suits my needs for deal posting on the go, general use etc. Prior to that I picked up the BMAX i10 which was excellent value at the time and I use that as a Home Assistant dashboard.

      Going back in time my real first Chinese tablet was the Chuwi Vi8 running Windows 8.1 and Android 4.4. It was when I first started working with GeekBuying and they gave me a 50% off coupon. I picked up a Chuwi Vi7 Android 5.1 too and while it was somewhat underpowered for the time it was bigger than my phone.

      The tablet market back then was so immature, but so innovative with dual OS, inbuilt projectors and more. These days there's far less factories involved so everyone are pretty similar.

  • Ghost47 on 19/01/2023 - 19:26

    Congrats on beating the cancer! That's actually blood freaking amazing considering you were told it was bumped to stage 4 and chances of survival were low.

    You mentioned the cancer had metastatisised but you had an operation and then was cured? Was the operation on multiple tumours or just the one?
    How did you get yourself through the darkest time of your diagnosis (e.g. when you were told you didn't have long to live)?
    Was there something you learnt about yourself that you didn't know before?
    What's changed about your life going forward, do you for example do more exercise now or are you a life coach or something?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 21:03
      +2

      You mentioned the cancer had metastatisised but you had an operation and then was cured? Was the operation on multiple tumours or just the one?

      Basically there was one big tumour from the small intestine to the ampulla, through the bile duct and ending at the pancreas. Then there was a number of lymph nodes in the surrounding areas and wrapped around the celiac axis (major artery). A huge amount of tissue had to be removed.

      How did you get yourself through the darkest time of your diagnosis (e.g. when you were told you didn't have long to live)?

      Years ago I suffered from severe depression and crossed the line once. After that experience how I perceived death had changed. It's hard to explain but I had come to accept that if this was the end then so be it. Even just before being knocked out in the operating theatre surrounded by a dozen nurses and doctors I still wasn't afraid if I'd never wake up. They noted at the time I was unusually happy for someone about to experience something so rough.

      Was there something you learnt about yourself that you didn't know before?

      I'm not sure lol. I guess it's really an eye opener about how strong the body is. How you can go through so much trauma, having so much removed and your whole system being rebuilt and everything just works after. It was a real eye opener about how lucky I was and how strong I am mentally/emotionally to go through it all.

      What's changed about your life going forward, do you for example do more exercise now or are you a life coach or something?

      Cutting out the stress and forgetting about the little things is super important. Everyone around me says I'm so chill now, just trying to live life to the fullest. Unfortunately I'm not quite ready to be getting back into the gym and cardio. Hopefully soon because all of my muscle wasted away… even on my hands.

      Raising awareness is very much an important thing for me now. Cancer is still very much a taboo thing to talk about. NETs is becoming increasingly common and so many people (GPs especially) have never heard of it. I certainly hadn't. Having something so secrets that's overtaking the yearly rates of pancreatic and thyroid cancer in Australia is a horrifying.

  • zeoko on 19/01/2023 - 20:58

    Did you loose weight drastically before you found out about it?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 21:04
      +1

      Nah this is one of those cancers that can cause excessive weight gain. I gained so much weight and in a period of about 5 weeks post OP I lost 25% of my total mass.

      Move aside Jenny Craig. I know the real weight loss secret XD

  • CptnObvious on 19/01/2023 - 21:06

    You sir are a legend.

    Now for the question: are you related to JV

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 21:07
      +3

      I can confirm that JV looks like your stereotypical overweight middle aged white guy who drives a taxi.

      My twin brother has an OzBargain account and it's not jv ;)

      • congo on 19/01/2023 - 21:13

        Have you meet JV in person?
        Any more clues on who is your twin brother?

        Congrats for beating cancer !!

        • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 21:14
          +2

          Only a few people know jv in person and I'm not one of them sadly.

          My bro isn't an active deal poster. One of my high school ex's however posts deals here and there.

  • drfuzzy on 19/01/2023 - 21:14
    +2

    Did the cashback still track from your surgery bill when you used discounted giftcards from Coles to pay the hospital?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 21:17
      +1

      Haha well I did use discounted Uber gift cards for my travel and increased cashback for my accommodation. Then billed the full amounts ex-cashback to the government for the travel refunds.

      That's technically not scamming right? Afterall I used my reward credit card too.

  • shap08 on 19/01/2023 - 22:15

    How many hours a day do you spend on ozbargain?
    Do you still work as a editor?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 22:19
      +1

      Wayyyyy too many hours. I have an OzBargain feed everywhere including the smart bathroom mirror.

      I haven't done any of the news site stuff for quite a while. I had one of the Chinese-run ones approach me recently asking if I'd write for them again. Since they can't have PayPal accounts themselves they asked if I could run their account since the Russian who was running it died (in Ukraine). I declined because they promised a lot last time and then ended up wanting to pay $1 per article because "everyone in the West are rich" :/

      • shap08 on 19/01/2023 - 22:23
        +1

        Appreciate your posts, especially the AliExpress codes. You are a great asset to the community.

        Glad you fought cancer and won.

      • 1Kenobi on 20/01/2023 - 09:41

        Do you really have a smart bathroom mirror? It that a thing? If so which one?

        • Clear on 20/01/2023 - 09:42
          +1

          I built one following a guide online years ago with a raspberry pi. Buying prebuilt is costly.

  • LoserScott on 19/01/2023 - 22:42
    -6

    Not sure what your health problems have to do with toxic bargains.

    If I want something from china I'll buy it.

  • ahara on 19/01/2023 - 23:19
    +1

    Wish to congratulate you on beating cancer and also thank you for the deals you’ve posted. I’m sure I’ve used one or the other.

    All the best for your health in 2023 and keep the good deals coming :)

  • tryagain on 19/01/2023 - 23:25

    1) In your experience, what would be the median correlation between up votes and sales?
    2) Do you approach retailers, or do they normally approach you to post deals?
    3) Do retailers here often run with loss leaders with a view to make money on future transactions and any evidence if it works with what I imagine would be a very price sensitive audience?

    • Clear on 19/01/2023 - 23:32
      +1

      1) In your experience, what would be the median correlation between up votes and sales?

      Too hard to say really. I've had expensive items score 70 votes with 1 purchase and cheap items with 20 votes score 500 purchases. Years ago many of my GeekBuying deals on chargers and cables could easily make 1000 sales a week and barely hit the front page.

      2) Do you approach retailers, or do they normally approach you to post deals?

      I approach stores for deals. Most stores respond positively and are happy to talk deals, while others have no interest whatsoever. I've had a lot of success with Amazon and AliExpress sellers over the years.

      3) Do retailers here often run with loss leaders with a view to make money on future transactions and any evidence if it works with what I imagine would be a very price sensitive audience?

      Stores do loss leading all the time. It doesn't really work too well with OzBargain since for a lot of products it can set a precedent and then people expect it to be that cheap or cheaper everytime. eBay did a lot of loss leading recently by funding deals like this in order to attract more eBay Plus customer. Then I've had further deals like this since Mobileciti have excess stock.

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