Archive for April, 2008
Online shopping: Daily dealers & Clearance Kids
It’s a little less work or productivity related, but there’s been a tad too much work recently so it’s time for a change. My current goal is to do everything possible online. Mainly, I’m trying to stick to minor changes such as shopping and procuring basic services. It’s not an experiment as such, I’m just doing what I can. I should point out that if there’s an old geocities style presence or a hotmail address, then it doesn’t really count as web presence. In fact, that’s almost worse. You know that the net exists, but you ignore what it can do. End of rant.
There’s a fair number of great online retailers in Australia, and a few less great ones. I’ll look at those a little later. For now I want to address the Daily Dealers and the Clearance Kids. I see Daily Dealers as an Australian rip-off of Woot, and as Woot don’t ship internationally, I don’t see much wrong with that. The premise is a time limit and generally stock that might sell out in a day. The other big features of Woot are great copywriting, and a community aspect.
Here’s my views so far on sites I’ve used…
Daily:
| site | slogan | time | rating | good | bad |
| zazz | One Day. One Thingy. One Chance | Midnight | 10/10 | Usually genuinely good dealsFosters a ‘zazz’ communityCopy is often entertaining | Offers have been a little lacklustre of late, but I did just buy a USB drumkit. |
| catch of the day | One catch to hook them all | Midday | 2/10 | I bought some cheap ipod speakers. They work ok. | Not even a woot rip-off, this is a zazz rip-offCopy is often cringeworthy to readQuestionable promotion tacticsLess gadget oriented, and often dull stuff. I would actually prefer not to buy from them, but sometimes I cant resist. |
| 1 a day | n/a | 9AM | 9/10 | Interesting items daily, few repeats. Mostly not tech items.Companion site Torpedo7.com.au is a pretty good find also | Stock levels might need to be reviewed, often an early selloutNZ based, no adjustment for Aus daylight savings |
| tech deals | n/a | n/a | 0/10 | No purchases yet. | Seems considerably less mature than competitors.I see what they want to do, but I dont think they make it |
Outlets:
- DealsDirect – The premier overstock retailer. They stock good stuff, deliver quickly and have 24×7 customer service. They have this caper sorted, and its simple.
- DailyDeals – Associated with Catch Of The Day, so I don’t really like it. You cant pretty well guarantee that most stock will come up as a ‘catch’ someday. Not compelling.
- Overstock Outlet – Despite appearances, I wont purchase from OO again. I bought one item, I was in a hurry. I had to make half a dozen calls to their Accounts department to even confirm my purchase. Not cool.
In the end, this is a great way to aquire stuff you don’t need. But it’s easy.
Comments are off for this post
