New bargain website: Bargains24

[Bargains24]

Hi guys,

Steve-o88 here, posting under my dealer name Bargains24.

We’ve been working on a side project the past couple of months that I’d like to share.

What is it?

A community driven bargain sharing website called Bargains24 (www.bargains24.co.za). Check our video which gives a brief summary. More detail info is on our how it works page.

How is it different from all the other coupon/deal websites?

Our platform is built for the people. No stores/merchants are allowed to post on the website, yet. We’re fiercely transparent and independent, and we want our posted deals to be the same.

The platform is geared to provide users control. You can post deals, you can up vote good deals and you can down vote bad deals (enough down votes removes it for review). You can also subscribe to email notifications for a specific deal or a category, so no more irrelevant emails.

Alright Robin Hood, so what in it for you and how do you make money?

The feeling of not paying full price, and helping others to do the same. Whether you’re doing it tough or just careful with your money, you shouldn’t pay for more something when you don’t have to.

Money is made from advertising. You’ll notice some advertising on the website. It’s not much but it keeps the lights on.

In future we plan to use more creative (and non-instrusive) ways to generate income. In the spirit of transparency we’ll share these kinds of developments as they are rolled out.

Great, how do I get started?

Before we jump in I’d like to reward some of the regular posters on here.

I’ve been monitoring the hardware bargains thread for the past 6 months and have written down the top 5 quality deal contributors:

gtx gaming
Fox1
enerdude
Fury05
airborne

And because sharing is the ethos we want to promote, if you guys mentioned above register on www.bargains24.co.za using your MyBB username, we’ll organise a R100 gift card from Loot or Raru for you. You don’t need to do anything else. We’ll send the gift card straight to you through MyBB.

Special mention to ld13 who has already found the website and registered, so we’d like to offer you a R100 gift card too.

More about the website

It’s in its infancy, so it has its bugs and it’s not particulary pretty but I’m confident enough that it’s got enough features to be of value to a large base of users. If you find any bugs or have any questions, get in touch with us at [email protected] .

More about me

I’ll save you a whois lookup. I’m an expat South African who has been in Australia for a couple years. With all my family still back home I regularly purchase gifts for them and I’m always frustrated with finding competitive deals in SA. Most websites that have “deals” are simply pushing whoever is the highest bidder for space on their webpage and offer little value. After seeing something similar in the UK and Oz I came up with idea of setting up something similar for SA.

 

[falcon786]

Nice idea lets hope it works.I will support it.

Things like the MTN black friday specials and other great deals can be posted there.

 

[Conack]

Count me in, thanks for this

 

[falcon786]

Ok I tried making a new account but it's a pain in the behind,this isn't a banking site and I'm perfectly capable of choosing my own secure password,do you have to make the password options so onerous?

I tried 4 times now and it's not accepting what I'm entering and I would rather not use a site than use the same password as my bank account one.

I'm keen to support this initiative,I think it's great,but please this has to go?

 

[Thor]

Pretty neat idea.


Careful with that "24"

 

[Fury05]

Good idea. Will try to register later on. Thanks

 

[Bargains24]

Ok I tried making a new account but it's a pain in the behind,this isn't a banking site and I'm perfectly capable of choosing my own secure password,do you have to make the password options so onerous?

I tried 4 times now and it's not accepting what I'm entering and I would rather not use a site than use the same password as my bank account one.

I'm keen to support this initiative,I think it's great,but please this has to go?

That's odd because I purposefully relaxed this because I hate those kinds of requirements too. As far as I know the only restriction is that it needs to be 6 characters long. I just created a dummy account with the password "qwerty" and it accepted that. It warned me that it was Fair in security but didn't stop me from using it. Do you want to give it another crack and let me know if you still have issues?

 

[Bargains24]

Pretty neat idea.


Careful with that "24"

Haha ja, my first few domain name ideas were taken and then I found that nugget. I will admit, sticking it to "the man" was a contributing factor with going ahead with the name

 

[Foxhound5366]

Haha ja, my first few domain name ideas were taken and then I found that nugget. I will admit, sticking it to "the man" was a contributing factor with going ahead with the name

You won't think you're sticking it to the man when the man sues you for dilution of brand equity You don't even have a defense because '24' by itself means nothing, only 24/7 does (and that's not in your URL). So the only reasonable conclusion people will draw is that your website is related to the rest of the -24 stable, and that makes you legally vulnerable.

As cute as the idea seems now, I strongly suggest you change it to something you own by yourself, before your website gains traction and your brand gets entrenched and THEN you're not only sued but will have to change your name very publicly and at great loss to your user base.

 

[Thor]

Haha ja, my first few domain name ideas were taken and then I found that nugget. I will admit, sticking it to "the man" was a contributing factor with going ahead with the name

Fck em I didn't see a patent on it just register your brand at cipc before they do

 

[Bargains24]

You won't think you're sticking it to the man when the man sues you for dilution of brand equity You don't even have a defense because '24' by itself means nothing, only 24/7 does (and that's not in your URL). So the only reasonable conclusion people will draw is that your website is related to the rest of the -24 stable, and that makes you legally vulnerable.

As cute as the idea seems now, I strongly suggest you change it to something you own by yourself, before your website gains traction and your brand gets entrenched and THEN you're not only sued but will have to change your name very publicly and at great loss to your user base.

Just some clarification on my comment earlier. It was an error on my part to phrase it like I did. While other websites using the whole “24” thing were taken into consideration when we were naming our website, we did our research before creating our site. We took great care to seperate ourselves by ensuring that our colouring, logo, website design and internet niche were unique. We feel that our brand is unique enough to stand on it’s own and would like our users to know we are an independent site with no affiliations to existing brands. Our purpose is to create a new type of bargain sharing website for our users and we believe that we are the only ones currently doing so in South Africa.
As always, we aim for transparency and honesty and acknowledge that the phrasing of my previous comment was tongue-in-cheek and perhaps not well thought out. However, we do feel that it is clear to our users and anyone who visits our site, that we are an independent organisation with a clearly defined purpose that is uniquely ours.

 

[isie]

nice idea will give it a try

 

[Bargains24]

Now that a few of you have registered I'll share some key features of the platform.

Front page

Although the front page and the 'All Deals' page look the same there is a fundamental difference.
Only deals that get 3 up votes will make it to the front page. (I've been artificially slapping 3 up votes on deals that either me or littlechief have been posting)
When a regular user posts a deal it goes to the 'All Deals' page, and doesn't show on the front page because: 1) it could not be a bad deal or 2) it could be spam. So those instances it would be ignore or voted down 5 times and removed, without get to the front page and getting it's chance in the sun.
The whole point is for the front page to only display quality, community vetted deals.

Subscriptions

The system crux to you getting relevant deal notifications if you are not posting yourself. When you register on the website the subscriptions feature will appear in 1) individual deals where you can subscribe to updates and comment specific to that deal and 2) in your user profile where you have a range of options (user profile link is visible at the bottom left of the website).

By default everybody is subscribed to freebies.

 

[falcon786]

That's odd because I purposefully relaxed this because I hate those kinds of requirements too. As far as I know the only restriction is that it needs to be 6 characters long. I just created a dummy account with the password "qwerty" and it accepted that. It warned me that it was Fair in security but didn't stop me from using it. Do you want to give it another crack and let me know if you still have issues?

Thanks.It worked first time when I tried this morning using the same password that it refused to accept yesterday.

Very strange maybe my internets was broken.

 

[falcon786]

we believe that we are the only ones currently doing so in South Africa. .

There is this site: http://www.hotsadeals.co.za .

However as you can see it's not very well updated and you choosing to let users post deals should help you from falling into the same trap of no activity on the site.I'll definitely spread the word...maybe do a thread on carbonite also to get more traction.

 

[PhireSide]

Cool idea. I will be registering shortly!

 

[bradrap]

How do you guys feel about cd key sellers like G2A and other digital market place deals being posted?

 

[Bargains24]

There is this site: http://www.hotsadeals.co.za .

However as you can see it's not very well updated and you choosing to let users post deals should help you from falling into the same trap of no activity on the site.I'll definitely spread the word...maybe do a thread on carbonite also to get more traction.

Thanks, yeah I spotted that website during my research but like you say it's more like a blog. It would be good if he was still doing it so our users had another source to share deals from.
Thanks for the Carbonite suggestion. I'll have a look to see if I can post there too.

How do you guys feel about cd key sellers like G2A and other digital market place deals being posted?

Yeah that's fine, and please do post if you think there's a bargain or good deal on there.
Pretty much the only thing that can't be posted is illegal/pirated content and adult content. We give a detailed breakdown on our how it works page which highlights restrictions.

 

[Bargains24]

Good idea. Will try to register later on. Thanks

Great! If you want you can let me know which gift card you want so I can get that organised so long. As you're one of the five bargain posters I mentioned in my first post, you're entitled to a R100 Loot or Raru gift card when you have signed up.

 

[chickenbeef]

Done

Browsing on my phone at the moment but the site looks good so far