PriceMe Smarter Shopping Blog

Wish lists, retailer pop-up and performance

Henrik — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:05:17 +0000

We released a new version of PriceMe recently. Here are some of the highlight’s:

- Sharing of wishlists via email, FB and Twitter. Here’s my wishlist for example
http://www.priceme.co.nz/MyWishList/n_Henrik,s_b39ada70-7838-4549-86fa-3b5f72b8eeb2.aspx

- Retailer pop-up when clicking ‘Retailer Info’ or retailer reviews on the product page. Hence, no need for the user to navigate away from the product page to the retailer page to view reviews, store info etc.
http://www.priceme.co.nz/Canon-EOS-1100D/p-884785963.aspx

- Simplified fees next to the Visit Shop buttons (only shipping fee is shown)

- Channel Partner Page
http://www.priceme.co.nz/RetailerCenter/ChannelPartners.aspx

- Plural handling for search. Searching for ‘watches’ now returns all watches (previously only ‘watch’ worked)
http://www.priceme.co.nz/search.aspx?q=seiko+watches

- Stock level also shown when expanding and clicking ‘View more offers’

- Buttons for ‘Add to compare list’ and ‘Get price alert’ on the product page

- Performance improvements for maps and brand pages.

As always, please let us know what you think of the new version and if you have some suggestions.

Happy New Year to all our users!

Retailer Newsletter Christmas 2011

Henrik — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:01:07 +0000

We just sent out our Christmas newsletter to retailers. It contains some news and announcements. Please check it out here:
http://www.priceme.co.nz/newsletter/Christmas-2011-Retailer-Newsletter.html

The PriceMe team wishes all retailers and users a Merry Christmas! Thanks all for your support in 2011!

Fixed width layout and more changes

Henrik — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 01:16:05 +0000

The PriceMe layout has been revamped in the latest 4.2 version released earlier this week. The main change is that we now employ a fixed width layout instead of the liquid one that we previously used. It’s easier to control the layout of fixed width pages, and we can also ensure that the pages look OK on most devices including smartphones. This is basically how PriceMe looked like until May of 2008 (for those of you that have been using PriceMe for a while). There are still a few minor issues with the new layout that we’ll resolve shortly.

Some users have comment that the dark background colour isn’t a modern web colour and ‘difficult’ on the eye. We agree to some extent, and have tried to employ a white background. The current design doesn’t fit a white background though, so we would have to change the design before moving to a white (or lighter) background colour.

The new version also contains other useful changes:

Product page

Order switched on the product page between the retailer logo column and the retailer product column. Most shopping comparison engines (CSE) site display listings this way and it makes it easier for users to find a suitable retailer. In addition, paying retailers get more exposure when the retailer logo is displayed to the left.

Search
More interesting search result page shown for searches having no matches. We removed the filtering options and also added some tips on how to refine/alter the search.

As always, please let us know directly what you think of the new layout and any other suggestions that you might have to improve PriceMe.

Wishlists, Price Alerts and Review Analysis

Henrik — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:20:02 +0000

We released a new version of PriceMe.

Product page:
—————-
- Offers from the same retailer grouped together for products that have many retailers.The ’see all’ link has therefore been removed since it isn’t needed anymore.
- Product page status bar.

- Price alert of retailer on retailer product level.
- Add to wishlist (perfect just before Christmas).
- Review analysis for expert reviews (browse by rating).
- Larger font size for the price.

Catalog page:
—————-
- Moved the review stars up to the right of the product name (for the list and search views). This change saves some space and makes the catalog list pages more contact and interesting.

Compare page
—————–
- Comparison of reviews from the same review source, so that you can easily see if the same person or site rates products differently. Analysing differences in rating from the same sources is a great way to find good products.

Retailer page:
—————-
- Standardise look-and-feel for retailer pages.
- Retailer list sorted by popularity by default.

Please let us know what you think of the above changes. We look forward to hearing from you.

Google Login, Design Updates, Performance Improvements and More Updates

Henrik — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:26:41 +0000

It has been a productive month for the PriceMe development team: yet another version packed with improvements was launched earlier this evening. Here are some of the new features:

Support for Google Login
You can now use your Gmail account to login to PriceMe. No need to create yet another account. Why don’t you check it out and add a review to PriceMe? A few months ago we added support for Facebook login.

Bug fix in pagination for the catalog pages
There was an issue with the pagination when sorting was applied.
For example, viewing mobile phones and sorting by price worked fine for the first page, but the sorting was lost when viewing the second page.

Nicer looking tabs on product pages
We added some more spaces between the tabs both on the home page and on the product pages.
The whole tab area is now clickable, not only the text on tab. This will hopefully make it easier to navigate using the different tabs.

Like Us on Facebook campaign
We now provide easy access to our Facebook page from the product pages (please see the right column). Like us on Facebook, and you’ll enter a draw to win $100 every month.

Popularity cloud for related categories
You can now easily find the most popular and related categories for a particular brand by viewing our cloud. Popular categories are display in larger font size. The popularity is based on the number of views the last thirty days.

Performance improvement for price history page
We now load the number of retailers for the price history page separately from the price history graph. First the price history graph is loaded using Ajax so that users can view the most important information first, and then a second Ajax call retrieves the number of retailers.
Simplified registration page
Many PriceMe users have requested us to simplify the registration process. We listened, and removed a few fields. The only fields required are first name, email address and a password.

http://www.priceme.co.nz/Register2.aspx