Monitor prices of products online

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 4:42pm #1

Note: I've got permission from Davy to post this here.

Just thought I'd share a site I've made that helps you monitor prices online across plenty of sites including the likes of Amazon, John Lewis, eBay etc.

The basic idea behind the site is you enter the Url of the product you want and the price you're willing to pay for it. http://Fractionn.com will then monitor the product regularly and notify you if the price reaches the price you want to pay.

Can come in handy if there's stuff that you're not in a rush for

If anyone has any features they'd like to see in on it give me a shout and I'll see what I can do.

eamonnq · 20-01-2014 4:47pm

I think you might consider slowing down the 'how it works' graphics.

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 4:53pm

eamonnq wrote: »

I think you might consider slowing down the 'how it works' graphics.

Will do, thanks. Should be done by tonight. That's exactly the type of feedback that I need. Made it as a college project

Kenny Logins · 20-01-2014 5:07pm

Can it be used without registration? A quick price check?

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 5:08pm

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Can it be used without registration? A quick price check?

Unfortunately not. We need your email address or whatever so we can notify you. It only takes a minute to sign up though.

Kenny Logins · 20-01-2014 5:12pm

Jamie_ wrote: »

Unfortunately not. We need your email address or whatever so we can notify you. It only takes a minute to sign up though.

Not a price change notification, but just for a live stock/price check? Or is this not possible?

eamonnq · 20-01-2014 5:13pm

If you could check current prices across the sites, it might be a useful hook.

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 5:15pm

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Not a price change notification, but just for a live stock/price check? Or is this not possible?

Not 100% sure what you mean. We don't really check stock levels (although if someone isn't in stock we won't notify you until it is).

And to get the price of an item right now you can just go to the site direct?

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 5:15pm

eamonnq wrote: »

If you could check current prices across the sites, it might be a useful hook.

That's something that a few people have mentioned. Will think of a way of implementing it!

neil_hosey · 20-01-2014 5:16pm

amazon works of ASIN's... how do you identify the products on ebay without a barcode or something?

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 5:19pm

neil_hosey wrote: »

amazon works of ASIN's... how do you identify the products on ebay without a barcode or something?

Yeah Amazon is quite good when it comes to stuff like this.

And we use magic

Kenny Logins · 20-01-2014 5:26pm

Jamie_ wrote: »

Not 100% sure what you mean. We don't really check stock levels (although if someone isn't in stock we won't notify you until it is).

And to get the price of an item right now you can just go to the site direct?

So you can tell if something is in stock or not? Don't care how many - 1 or 0 is close enough.

Yes, but it would be much easier for a service to check all of the other sites prices for me.

Having spent some time on here I think it's safe to say that 'can I get this cheaper somewhere else?' is very important, and this is what happens on almost every thread in here - one person posts a bargain, and another finds it cheaper elsewhere.

For example, I want a Nexus 7 2013 model 16gb - I enter the details, or link, in your site and it simply returns a list of all retailers and prices.

20-01-2014 5:40pm

Jamie_ wrote: »

Yeah Amazon is quite good when it comes to stuff like this.

And we use magic

No offense, but if you're looking for constructive criticism from people then you're probably going to need to give less sarcastic replies, especially when it is a pretty reasonable question. Otherwise why would we want to help you? You want to come across as professional, then act it.

Some opinions regarding How It Works animation on the Home Page:

1: Slow it down: I'm a quick reader, quicker than most, but even I'm struggling to see exactly what it says.
2: Stop it repeating: it's actually pretty annoying that when it reaches the end, it loops again. Give the option to repeat or just to leave it as is.
3: Stop it moving forward automatically: If I click on, say number 2, I don't want it to move on to point 3 until I'm ready or at least until I'm given ample time to read it.

With regards to the supported sites - you need to make it much more prominent than it actually is. I would say to place it above your How To Work animation, primarily because this is what your main hook really is, right? I didn't even see the full list until I clicked on to your FAQ and saw the URL for it.

kingtut · 20-01-2014 5:49pm

Having just had a look at the site I think the concept is great however there are 2 things that I don't like.

1) The name "Fractionn", I don't find it catchy and I don't think it says anything about the purpose of the site
2) Everything is too fast/flashy

Apart from that, good job! I'll be watching development of this site carefully

Steviemoyne · 20-01-2014 7:31pm

On the whole name side of things , I thought it was fine but if it's the sort of feedback that's setting off alarm bells with everyone left right and center saying they don't like the name then how about "ForAFractionn.com"?

brian ireland · 20-01-2014 7:56pm

Not sure if this is the kind of feedback you are looking for? Tried this just as a test and it says Oops, the URL you've entered is incorrect!
Its from pixmaina.

Like the idea and i will use it

http://www.pixmania.ie/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s4-16-gb-i9505-white/21361759-a.html

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 8:41pm

Kenny Logins wrote: »

For example, I want a Nexus 7 2013 model 16gb - I enter the details, or link, in your site and it simply returns a list of all retailers and prices.

Would you like something like this:

Enter a URL of a product and you'll get a page back telling you where the cheapest retailer is (without needing to make an account). This could also be useful for members to check before targetting a product I think.

Deleted User wrote: »

1: Slow it down: I'm a quick reader, quicker than most, but even I'm struggling to see exactly what it says.
2: Stop it repeating: it's actually pretty annoying that when it reaches the end, it loops again. Give the option to repeat or just to leave it as is.
3: Stop it moving forward automatically: If I click on, say number 2, I don't want it to move on to point 3 until I'm ready or at least until I'm given ample time to read it.

With regards to the supported sites - you need to make it much more prominent than it actually is. I would say to place it above your How To Work animation, primarily because this is what your main hook really is, right? I didn't even see the full list until I clicked on to your FAQ and saw the URL for it.

Cheers, appreciate the feedback. I've now edited the slideshow to make it 100% manual which I think is much better than before. This solves all of those problems.

Have also mentioned the supported sites at the very top of the slideshow to make it more obvious. Thanks again.

kingtut wrote: »

Having just had a look at the site I think the concept is great however there are 2 things that I don't like.

1) The name "Fractionn", I don't find it catchy and I don't think it says anything about the purpose of the site
2) Everything is too fast/flashy

Apart from that, good job! I'll be watching development of this site carefully

Added a quick tagline at the top of the site to try make Fractionn more memorable. And not as fast/flashy anymore

brian ireland wrote: »

Not sure if this is the kind of feedback you are looking for? Tried this just as a test and it says Oops, the URL you've entered is incorrect!
Its from pixmaina.

Like the idea and i will use it

http://www.pixmania.ie/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s4-16-gb-i9505-white/21361759-a.html

Appears that Pixmania might be acting up a bit at the moment. Will look in to it. In the mean time it might be worth trying to use the .co.uk version of the site.

Finally, thanks to all the new members that joined! Hope it saves you all some money.

Ps. Can anyone confirm that there's a blue box above the slideshow (when not logged in!) mentioning the supported sites page? Seems like it's taking a while to update since I can't see the changes even after clearing my cache etc.

20-01-2014 9:05pm

The slideshow is still moving through automatically, the only difference is that the bar explaining things in detail on appears when you move your mouse over the slideshow. Also it displays in £, should you have the option to change currency on your site?

With your registering, you should really change that as well - the input boxes are too far away and it is difficult to see where they actually are. It took me a few seconds to figure it out.

OK, I've run into a major problem that you are going to have, at least with Amazon.

Say if I go on to Amazon.co.uk and I manually search for an item using their inbuilt search engine - an Xbox One, for example. On your site it says to input the URL of the item you want to watch. So if I do this, the URL comes up as follows -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-7UV-00080-Xbox-One-Console/dp/B00BE4OUBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390249151&sr=8-1&keywords=xbox+one

.
When I try and input this, it tells me that that specific URL is invalid, even though it is the one that was provided. However if you remove the following part -

ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390249151&sr=8-1&keywords=xbox+one

so that the URL you enter is

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-7UV-00080-Xbox-One-Console/dp/B00BE4OUBG

, then it works.

Hope I made sense there. It seems that your system doesn't recognize Amazon's own ID, reference number, and keyword system.

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 9:22pm

Deleted User wrote: »

The slideshow is still moving through automatically, the only difference is that the bar explaining things in detail on appears when you move your mouse over the slideshow. Also it displays in £, should you have the option to change currency on your site?

With your registering, you should really change that as well - the input boxes are too far away and it is difficult to see where they actually are. It took me a few seconds to figure it out.

Input boxes were fixed a few days ago, register page should be like this: http://imgur.com/bY5Bosp

Also, talking to the host now. Seems like something is up on their end at the minute. Good spot about the currency. Works with pretty £, € and $ so just saying £ isn't right really :pac:

Tar.Aldarion · 20-01-2014 9:31pm

camelcamelcamel is great if you are just looking at amazon. I always used it for the graphs but the price check and auto-email is great.

Jamie_ · 20-01-2014 9:39pm

boneyarsebogman - Added a note to the target product page to try tell people about this. In the next few days I'll try do it myself so the user doesn't have to worry about it though! Also, now the slideshow and homepage should be updated. Could you clear your cache and so on and give it a check?

Tar.Aldarion - It is quite a good site yeah. Fractionn is similar but with loads more retailers (and no live price check, but this is coming

)

iknorr · 20-01-2014 10:13pm

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

camelcamelcamel is great if you are just looking at amazon. I always used it for the graphs but the price check and auto-email is great.

Agreed. Theres a chrome extension also.
its extremely easy to use. just 1 click for price history.
Also, invisible hand is an auto extension. runs in the backround and when you browse certain sites like amazon it will automatically search for a cheaper price for the product.

if you can combine both these extensions & functions, you will get a huge amount of users.

Fnz · 21-01-2014 11:38am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

No offense, but if you're looking for constructive criticism from people then you're probably going to need to give less sarcastic replies, especially when it is a pretty reasonable question. Otherwise why would we want to help you? You want to come across as professional, then act it.

I didn't read that response as sarcastic. They're allowed to have trade secrets. I thought that was the implication of the response.

proulx · 21-01-2014 3:39pm

Ok so just tried to use. It is a great idea am looking for something that I do not actually need until June.

It says I need to remove the unnecessary text in link, but am not sure what bit to get rid

Any help please

Jamie_ · 21-01-2014 6:11pm

proulx wrote: »

Ok so just tried to use. It is a great idea am looking for something that I do not actually need until June.

It says I need to remove the unnecessary text in link, but am not sure what bit to get rid

Any help please

PM me and I'll try to help you out if I can (Site mightn't be supported!)

Jamie_ · 24-01-2014 8:59pm

Quick update:

Noticed that 99% of the products being watched are from Amazon so I added an Amazon search box on the site to make things a bit easier for people.

Also added one or two ads to see if I can cover hosting costs! Some minor bug fixes in there too

sok2005 · 24-01-2014 9:47pm

I haven't been able to add anything yet. Tried to add items from amazon and argos but I keep getting the same error message. Oops, the URL you've entered is incorrect. Copied and pasted links direct. Http present also.

Also in the how much do you want to pay box is it always in Euro?

Jamie_ · 24-01-2014 9:58pm

sok2005 wrote: »

I haven't been able to add anything yet. Tried to add items from amazon and argos but I keep getting the same error message. Oops, the URL you've entered is incorrect. Copied and pasted links direct. Http present also.

Also in the how much do you want to pay box is it always in Euro?

PM me the Amazon link if you want and I'll take a look at it. Plenty of Amazon links have been targeted recently so shouldn't have any issues with them.

Argos links only work if they are on argos.co.uk as far as I remember unfortunately, that's probably the problem here.

When entering the price it depends on what currency the link is in. Got example if using Amazon.co.uk you'd enter the price in pounds while if you wanted to monitor something on Amazon.com you could enter your target price for what you want to pay for in dollars.

neil_hosey · 02-02-2014 11:11am

theres no link between Amazon ASINs and Ebay products (unless barcodes are used, but in fairness, not used very often)..

the only way you could be doing this is by crawling the ebay site or doing an API search on Ebay which is not very good as the ASIN descriptions definately wont always match ebay descriptions..

IT-Guy · 02-02-2014 11:52am

Trying to use the site in Chrome on an iPad 2. Every time I touch the text box to paste the URL a flash box keeps popping up prompting me to paste the link, no cursor appears in the text box. Same behaviour in Safari

Jamie_ · 07-02-2014 6:15pm

neil_hosey wrote: »

theres no link between Amazon ASINs and Ebay products (unless barcodes are used, but in fairness, not used very often)..

the only way you could be doing this is by crawling the ebay site or doing an API search on Ebay which is not very good as the ASIN descriptions definately wont always match ebay descriptions..

You're right about eBay since most people wouldn't add details such as ASINs to their products.

IT-Guy wrote: »

Trying to use the site in Chrome on an iPad 2. Every time I touch the text box to paste the URL a flash box keeps popping up prompting me to paste the link, no cursor appears in the text box. Same behaviour in Safari

Still have to make lots of fixes for mobile/tablet devices for the site. Really should have mentioned that the site is in the BETA stages :pac:

Quick question for people that want to be able to compare prices across loads of sites for the same product:

Would you be happy with entering the url of a product and then getting back the cheapest site that's selling the same product? Example: Tell us the link of a Samsung Galaxy S3 on Play.com and we find out that it's cheaper at Amazon or something similar. Or do you want a list of many retails that are cheaper?

Few changes made to the homepage too, think it looks a bit nicer.

Jamie_ · 16-02-2014 1:48pm

More supported retailers have been added recently, hoping some people are starting to save some money by now

Jamie_ · 10-03-2014 8:53pm

Finishing touches been made to the site soon, if anyone has any suggestions feel free to tell me what you'd like to see on the site.

Comparing prices across loads of sites at once is something that's being looked in to at the moment. Someone saved £100 on a product earlier today!

hecmail · 10-03-2014 10:03pm

Hi, I think you've an issue with Amazon links. I've tried a couple. Basically searched the site and clicked on the products I wanted. Copied the URL to the product but got an error. Checked the URL and it had a ref indicating where I came to the link from (i.e. some details on the search like this... "/ref=sr_1_94?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1394484037&sr=1-94&keywords=XYZ"). I deleted this bit from the end and it worked. You might try automatically doing this. Site looks good, but I've a few points:

It's not clear the top of the site is introductory slides at first glance, it actually looks like you can get started by clicking on it straight away! You might want to differentiate it a little. Maybe a slight shadow box around it and/or a title "Introduction" in some fancy writing in the top left corner.
I'd suggest you include large arrows on the right and left of the slides. The small arrows around beside the text don't look great and detract from the text. Similar bar arrows to the ones you have, just at either side of the slides. It might help to differentiate it as slides also.
I'd suggest you include a sign-up button on the last slide, possibly instead of "How it works button" or above the bird on the cart.

Jamie_ · 11-03-2014 6:46pm

hecmail wrote: »

Hi, I think you've an issue with Amazon links. I've tried a couple. Basically searched the site and clicked on the products I wanted. Copied the URL to the product but got an error. Checked the URL and it had a ref indicating where I came to the link from (i.e. some details on the search like this... "/ref=sr_1_94?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1394484037&sr=1-94&keywords=XYZ"). I deleted this bit from the end and it worked. You might try automatically doing this. Site looks good, but I've a few points:
It's not clear the top of the site is introductory slides at first glance, it actually looks like you can get started by clicking on it straight away! You might want to differentiate it a little. Maybe a slight shadow box around it and/or a title "Introduction" in some fancy writing in the top left corner.

I'd suggest you include large arrows on the right and left of the slides. The small arrows around beside the text don't look great and detract from the text. Similar bar arrows to the ones you have, just at either side of the slides. It might help to differentiate it as slides also.

I'd suggest you include a sign-up button on the last slide, possibly instead of "How it works button" or above the bird on the cart.

Thanks for the feedback.

Amazon links now work no matter what way you enter the link - have meant to sort that out a few weeks back so thanks for the reminder.

Have also added a "Join Now!" button on the homepage for people that aren't logged in.

Jamie_ · 04-04-2014 5:06pm

Site should be much more stable now when adding products to your FractionnList - enjoy

Jamie_ · 07-04-2014 7:35pm

Fractionn now pulls in images of products as well as prices to make the site a bit nicer to look at

Jamie_ · 21-04-2014 8:47pm

Few people have saved money lately (like an LG Television from Amazon), assume they are members from boards since most people that joined are from here :pac:

GG66 · 21-04-2014 10:50pm

This is a really great college project and I'm tempted to use the site but there are a few usability & trust issues which put me off..

I know it's a new site but I'd look at adding some social proof as soon as possible e.g. testimonials from people who have used it and benefited from it.

I also found myself wanting to try it immediately, I clicked on "1. Add product to fractionn list" a few times and nothing happened so I just presumed it didn't work. I was expecting to be able to actually do that i.e. add a product.. I get now that this is just to tell me what the site is about ..

Suggest you find some way to clearly demonstrate how this works and allow users to try it out. Registering and giving you my full contact details is a turn off for an untrusted site. I need to see a clear benefit before I'll trust you with my data.

You include this line in what looks like a system notification.

"Did you know that we support a wide range of sites? Check them out at our supported sites. More are being added all the time too!"

but it's already clear form the counter, you could just link the text beside the counter "supported sites". Suggest removing it.

Add some social sharing options

It's not clear that the service is free. Make this prominent with an easy link to sign up. Consider adding a social login with facebook or twitter, will make it quicker for users to register and also open up.

I hope you find this useful and not too critical. Please take it in the spirit it's intended. I've designed 100's of website and these are the first few issues which jumped out at me

Jamie_ · 22-04-2014 4:35pm

GG66 wrote: »

This is a really great college project and I'm tempted to use the site but there are a few usability & trust issues which put me off..

I know it's a new site but I'd look at adding some social proof as soon as possible e.g. testimonials from people who have used it and benefited from it.

I also found myself wanting to try it immediately, I clicked on "1. Add product to fractionn list" a few times and nothing happened so I just presumed it didn't work. I was expecting to be able to actually do that i.e. add a product.. I get now that this is just to tell me what the site is about ..

Suggest you find some way to clearly demonstrate how this works and allow users to try it out. Registering and giving you my full contact details is a turn off for an untrusted site. I need to see a clear benefit before I'll trust you with my data.

You include this line in what looks like a system notification.

"Did you know that we support a wide range of sites? Check them out at our supported sites. More are being added all the time too!"

but it's already clear form the counter, you could just link the text beside the counter "supported sites". Suggest removing it.

Add some social sharing options

It's not clear that the service is free. Make this prominent with an easy link to sign up. Consider adding a social login with facebook or twitter, will make it quicker for users to register and also open up.

I hope you find this useful and not too critical. Please take it in the spirit it's intended. I've designed 100's of website and these are the first few issues which jumped out at me

Thanks. Working on getting a few testimonials over the next few days - was planning on doing that but just never got around to it yet

Some good points that I'll definitely take on board - thanks.

Jamie_ · 25-04-2014 4:12pm

GG66 wrote: »

I know it's a new site but I'd look at adding some social proof as soon as possible e.g. testimonials from people who have used it and benefited from it.

A couple of Testimonials from Twitter are now on the homepage. Thanks again for taking a look at the site.

Jamie_ · 04-05-2014 5:48pm

Few emails sent out today for targets that have been reached. Looks like Amazon reduced a some TV's recently

Slutmonkey57b · 04-05-2014 8:12pm

I find it's still extremely flaky adding watches to the list. I've had 2 successes from about 10 attempts, mostly pasting the url directly.

does the site only track prices on the site you copied the url from, or across all the sites you track? E.g if I copy a tv url from Amazon, will it alert if the price is lower on curry's?

shinny · 04-05-2014 9:13pm

I gave up after multiple oops for the urls I posted (Argos.ie and Ebay.ie)

Slutmonkey57b · 04-05-2014 10:16pm

Most of the time I don't get an oops, it just sits there, and fails to add anything.

heliguyheliguy · 05-05-2014 1:52am

Great idea for a site and well implemented. I will be using it and have already started recommending it to others.
No one with half a brain is going to expect you to share proprietary information, so take such comments with a pinch of salt.
As for constructive criticism; It seems to take several goes to load the info from amazon and for some products (vinyl) not at all.
Try loading this url:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00005YC7Q/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1VINB6T1SJBAP&coliid=I2OC8LU0RA2FHR
and let me know if I'm doing something wrong please.

Do-more · 05-05-2014 11:24am

Oh are you still maintaining this? I sent you an email ages ago regarding problems and some suggestions, never got a reply so I haven't looked at it since.;)

Masala · 05-05-2014 12:08pm

...Removed content as should have used the PM facility - apologies to OP and Boards

not working for me.

Jamie_ · 05-05-2014 4:30pm

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

I find it's still extremely flaky adding watches to the list. I've had 2 successes from about 10 attempts, mostly pasting the url directly.

does the site only track prices on the site you copied the url from, or across all the sites you track? E.g if I copy a tv url from Amazon, will it alert if the price is lower on curry's?

Could you PM me the links that failed? In saying that, the service we use for some links has been having issues lately so this could be the cause. It just monitors the one retailer for now.

shinny wrote: »

I gave up after multiple oops for the urls I posted (Argos.ie and Ebay.ie)

Could you PM me the links? Argos.ie isn't supported right now though, the .co.uk is and usually when a product is reduced in the UK it's also reduced here. So might be worth using Argos.co.uk.

heliguyheliguy wrote: »

Great idea for a site and well implemented. I will be using it and have already started recommending it to others.
No one with half a brain is going to expect you to share proprietary information, so take such comments with a pinch of salt.
As for constructive criticism; It seems to take several goes to load the info from amazon and for some products (vinyl) not at all.
Try loading this url:

and let me know if I'm doing something wrong please.

Thanks a lot. This link worked fine for me: amazon.co.uk/Temptation-VINYL-Holly-Cole/dp/B00005YC7Q (boards.ie won't let me post the full link since I'm a new user - sorry)

Do-more wrote: »

Oh are you still maintaining this? I sent you an email ages ago regarding problems and some suggestions, never got a reply so I haven't looked at it since.;)

I've replied to every single email I've got about the site so no idea why you never got a reply. What's your first name and I'll resend it?

Masala wrote: »

PM'd.

Jamie_ · 13-05-2014 3:48pm

Bunch of emails sent out today once again

Lugh Summerson · 14-05-2014 10:55am

On Amazon, do you just track Amazon's price or the marketplace sellers' as well?

Are you able to take the price of shipping into account? For example, on camelcamelcamel.com if I want a book for £5, I would have a target price of £0.98 (because of the £4.02 shipping charge). But then I'd miss out if an FBA seller offers it for less than £5.

That would be the one feature that would make Fractionn more useful than camelcamelcamel.

Monitor prices of products online

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