Chrome Extension - Price Compare

Slaanesh

Hi,

I have written a new chrome extension for the bargain hunters amongst us. If you're like me, you compare every price on the internet to the price on Amazon before you even consider buying the product. This extension is written in the hope of making that a little bit easier.

Link to extension is here
How it works:

A little Amazon icon is inserted next to the price of the item. Once clicked a small dialog appears which then attempts to list details and price of similar products on Amazon. If it turns out the product is cheaper on Amazon, you can then follow the link and purchase the product.

At the moment, the extension supports 3 sites with the hope to add more in future (please let me know of any other sites you would like to see added):

1. argos.ie
2. argos.co.uk
3. dabs.ie

Here are some screenshots of the extension working:


and


Full Disclosure:

In order to query the Amazon API, I needed to sign up as an Amazon associate. It also means I need to host a server that runs my REST endpoint (where the requests go).
If someone does end up following one of the links and buying from Amazon, I will get a kickback. I am not looking to make millions, but if it put a scratch in the server costs I'd be happy enough.

Please please give me some feedback with ideas of what I could do to improve the plugin and I will do my best to comply! If there is a definite interest, I may write a Firefox plugin also.

MODS: If there are any problems with putting this here, please let me know.

Feature Suggestions:

• Remove common words from search, E.g. 'Argos value range' to improve search accuracy. (witnessmenow)

billius

Excellent idea...works a treat! Good work!
if this was HOT UK DEALS I'd be adding heat...instead...I've given thanks!

Slaanesh

Thanks Billius,

I plan to put it on HUKD at some point. It's not actually searchable on the Chrome Web Store at the moment, I want the lovely folks on the BA forum to give it a rattle first. There are a few things I need to do beforehand,

• Give a better description/explanation.
• Update the logo to something a little more appealing.
• Add in a changelog of things that have changed.

I hope people get some use out of it!

WildCardDoW

Looks good, can't wait to give it a try!

kendragon

Seems like a good idea. Going to give it a fair shake.

Korvanica

Class idea. and nice work !

An idea maybe when you add more sites. Allow users to enable/disable what sites it works with.

Digital Society

Really should just display the amazon price rather than an amazon button.

Affluenza

Great Idea
Will give it a go

bazery

Check out the chrome extension invisible hand. It checks most websites against Amazon's.

bazery

Check out the chrome extension invisible hand. It checks most websites against Amazon's.

Slaanesh

Digital Society wrote: »

Really should just display the amazon price rather than an amazon button.

The application does a best guess lookup against Amazon, it is not guaranteed to be the exact same item, hence just displaying a price would be misleading. It would also mean doing many more requests against the API when a page was loading and could be quite slow.

bazery wrote: »

Check out the chrome extension invisible hand. It checks most websites against Amazon's.

That looks pretty good! The difference with mine is it just checks against Amazon and will also show similar products. My app is fairly small fry at the mo, you never know though, it could grow!

peckerhead

Slaanesh wrote: »

The application does a best guess lookup against Amazon, it is not guaranteed to be the exact same item, hence just displaying a price would be misleading.

Invisible Hand is not immune to this kind of error; I've often seen it offer me 50% or 60% "savings" only to find when I click through that it's linking to a different model of the item or even a completely different product.

Invisible Hand makes money from the companies whose websites it includes in its searches — presumably on the basis of a flat "membership" fee and then % commissions on sales generated. If your app gains a bit of a foothold you could be onto something very lucrative... (like a buyout offer from IH? )

Fair play, and good idea to trial it here.

bazery

Yep sorry I came across as if I have something better. Fair play to ya for making it!

clint_silver

feature enhancement suggestions.

could you change it to display the price on mouse over hover rather than single click?

It looks as though its "doing something" for a couple of seconds on click so Im guessing its going off to get price. could it do this in the background on page load for all prices on that page so the mouse over hover is quicker?

Slaanesh

clint_silver wrote: »

feature enhancement suggestions.

could you change it to display the price on mouse over hover rather than single click?

Thanks for the suggestions. I think mouse over would be a little annoying if you were casually browsing if the dialog kept popping up. With the click you know you are performing a specific task. If it's the general consensus that people would like a mouseover, I'd definitely look at implementing it, or have an option that allowed it to be enabled/disabled.

It looks as though its "doing something" for a couple of seconds on click so Im guessing its going off to get price. could it do this in the background on page load for all prices on that page so the mouse over hover is quicker?

It has to send a request off to my server with the title of the product and parse a big load of XML data from Amazon and return the result in JSON format to the browser which is then laid out in the dialog.

Generally I've found it to be quite responsive so far. I have logging enabled on the server and on average I see that it takes less than a second to process each request. I have it hosted on a very basic server at the moment as I don't want to incur much (if any) cost at this early stage. But if more and more people use it, I may need to look at increasing resources.

If I tried loading everything at the start that would have quite a large performance impact on my server. For example, a category on the argos page could have 20 items, that would be 20 separate requests to the server.

Cheers.

congress3

Slaanesh wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions. I think mouse over would be a little annoying if you were casually browsing if the dialog kept popping up. With the click you know you are performing a specific task. If it's the general consensus that people would like a mouseover, I'd definitely look at implementing it, or have an option that allowed it to be enabled/disabled

I agree I find those mouse hover advertisements that automatically pop up to be extremely annoying.
E.G

Vurnon San Benito

Well done the app sir, good work.

Dr Pepper

Nice work Slaanesh! Working well for me.

This is probably quite unrelated but a 'feature' I would love to see on Amazon.co.uk (perhaps it's already there) is something that tells me:
1. How much shipping will cost on items I'm viewing (before I go to checkout),
2. If they ship to Ireland at all - Maybe I'm missing something but it seems like every time I put a handful of things into a shopping cart (usually after a lot of research and comparison), then checkout, a few - if not all - of the items say something "Sorry there is a problem with this item, yadda, yadda", meaning "We don't ship to Ireland you fool!!" - Really puts me off using Amazon!

Maybe an idea for your next plug-in

WildCardDoW

Yeah, the not shipping to Ireland, even when it's eligible for Free Super Saver really annoys me, generally if it's third party, fahgetaboutit.

AlanS181824

This is a really nice little application.
Good job!
I'll be sure to use it and use your links to help with the server costs

Slaanesh

I've updated the extension to support more sites, here is the full list:

• Argos.ie
• Argos.co.uk
• Dabs.ie
• Komplett.ie
• Pcworld.ie
• Pcworld.co.uk
• Hardwareversand.de

I've also slightly modified the layout. As again, any bugs/suggestions, please let me know.

dunworth1

any plans to bring it to firefox?

loopymum

This is great, thanks

sdanseo

Brilliant idea for an app - I'm impressed.

It would be great if the button had, instead of the amazon logo, your own logo - whereupon clicking the price would be compared with all sites where a search query for the same product returned at least one result.

Within 90 seconds of first use I've already saved >€200 (if, of course, I had €500 to waste on a ridiculously expensive coffee machine)

Argos wrote:

De'Longhi ESAM04.350 Bean to Cup Coffee Machine. 914/8891 Save Over €66.00
€798.39
Was €864.99

Amazon wrote:

£482.95(€585.19)
De'Longhi Magnifica ESAM04.350.S Rapid Cappuccino One Touch Milk Solution Bean To Cup Machine

Slaanesh

dunworth1 wrote: »

any plans to bring it to firefox?

Writing the firefox plugin is on the roadmap. I'm hoping to keep the core code very much the same so that any changes will work for both extensions.

sdeire wrote: »

Brilliant idea for an app - I'm impressed.

It would be great if the button had, instead of the amazon logo, your own logo - whereupon clicking the price would be compared with all sites where a search query for the same product returned at least one result.

Within 90 seconds of first use I've already saved >€200 (if, of course, I had €500 to waste on a ridiculously expensive coffee machine)

Haha, I noticed that coffee machine price difference too in my testing. Crazy price!

Slaanesh

UPDATE: Version 1.2
New sites added.
Jquery-UI Removed as it was conflicting with other sites.
New Dialog (SimpleModal) added for ease of adding new sites.

Online Retailers currently supported:

• Argos.ie
• Argos.co.uk
• Dabs.ie
• Komplett.ie
• Pcworld.ie
• Pcworld.co.uk
• Hardwareversand.de
• Bookdepository.com
• Gamestop.ie
• Wowhd.co.uk
• Ie.wowhd.com
• Svp.co.uk
• Play.com
• Pixmania.ie

It is now possible to click outside the dialog to close it. Also the 'Esc' key can be used to close the dialog.

I think Firefox will be next on the cards!

Digital Society

As has already been said though. I really would like to not have to click the button on every page. Would be nice to see a toolbar with instant cheapest price on it rather than having to click.