HoustonDon
Member
Houston
561 Posts
11/99
|  Posted - Jun 18 2000 : 7:48AMHi people! I was thinking that the price search needs one more feature to make it super helpful. Like dvdpricesearch.com, it should have a "cheapest at this store" feature. That way, we could use the coupons to their fullest potential. How about it?  [Link] |
Drew Black
broken crankshaft
8009 Posts
9/99
|  Posted - Jun 18 2000 : 11:11AM
HoustonDon -
Thanks for the suggestion. I wrote the code for this feature a couple of months ago. I decided not to implement it after speaking with a few of the participating stores.
Price search participation is voluntary on behalf of the stores. A standard feature like this might favor the low-price leaders. I would like to keep the price search as fair as possible for all of the participants. (If you follow the price search clsoely you will notice that there are price wars that occur. There are a few stores that update their prices a few times per day to be the lowest priced source for the items on the Top 15 searches list. They drop their prices to be a penny below the next guy. It's fun to watch.)
I'm working on adding price search by category. After that's done I'm going to work on an advanced search page which will also include an option for limiting the search results by price range. I might sneak in a "show me the best deals only" check box on the advanced search page.
I've got a few other features in mind for the price search. I plan to do a comparison cart transfer to store. This will allow you to transfer the contents of your ADT comparison cart to a shopping cart at the store. This will save you the hassle of hunting down the items at the store and placing them in the cart again.
I would like to add some level of personalization to the price search but I'm not exactly sure what people would like to see. I have thought about doing a 'price watch' feature similar to those available for the stock market. This will allow a user to build a list of items that they are considering purchasing and have the price search drop them an email if the price of an item reaches a point that they select, goes up/down, etc.
There's a few other things I have in mind but it's a bit too early to blurt them out since I haven't quite thought them through all the way.
Please check out the [url=20470]new forum softare</A too and provide me with any feedback. Jason Little has been working on finalizing the last few changes in hopes of converting to the new forum software very soon.
[This message has been edited by Drew Black (edited June 18, 2000).] [Link] |
Drew Black
broken crankshaft
8009 Posts
9/99
| Posted - Jun 18 2000 : 11:32AM
I forgot to mention that we've only had this request a couple of times. If we receive a lot of requests for a new feature we most certainly will implement it.
[Link] |
astroknight 
Questionable Moderator
Tastes so good...
4187 Posts
11/99
| Posted - Jun 18 2000 : 2:42PM
It would be a nice feature, but I understand Drew's reasons for not putting it in. Most of the stores supporting ADT seem to be doing a great job, with the support for chats and deals, so i'd hate to make them too uncomfortable.[Link] |
HoustonDon
Member
Houston
561 Posts
11/99
| Posted - Jun 18 2000 : 8:54PM
Drew, thanks for the reply. I figured that the reason was something along those lines. Maybe if some of the stores would accept that they can fill a niche of the market, there's room enough for several of them.
I don't think I've bought any adult dvd's from anyone not either recommended here or affiliated with this site. I tend to order large amounts at a time too. I like good service and all the affiliates here have provided good service to me.
As the market matures, most companies will likely have loss leaders (ie: sale items) to encourage people to shop at their stores with most titles priced similarly to other stores on the rest of their stock. Given the wide disparity between prices for any given title, I wonder how long this will take...
Maybe you can implement a smaller scale version of this feature to test the waters. Can you set up the program to show each stores ten "best buys"? (ie: these would be titles that are the lowest priced at a particular store on a given day) Thanks[Link] |
| |
|
Drew Black
broken crankshaft
8009 Posts
9/99
| Posted - Jun 18 2000 : 11:32PM
I talked this over with Steph for a while today. I think we have come up with a workable solution that will discourage petty price wars and help all participating stores promote true bargains/loss leaders. I'll unveil the plan after talking it over with a few of the stores this week.
Thanks for your feedback. If anyone has suggestions for improving ADT please feel free to post them in the forum or to drop us a note.
[Link] |
HoustonDon
Member
Houston
561 Posts
11/99
|  Posted - Jun 19 2000 : 1:05AM
Okay! Here's my latest suggestion for making the site better. Put Steph and Drew in charge of things and...oh, wait a minute, you two ARE in charge of things. No wonder it's so good here! 
ps: keep up the good work.[Link] |
Drew Black
broken crankshaft
8009 Posts
9/99
| Posted - Jun 20 2000 : 10:10PM
I have revamped the "best deals" code that I wrote. I'm getting ready to turn it on but before I do I would like to get a better idea of what should be considered a "best deal."
I have written it the code so a title that is at least $X cheaper at one store vs all others is considered a best deal. What value do I use for X? $0.25? $2.50? $5.00? Too small of a value and the list of deals becomes huge and meaningless. Too large a value and you miss out on some deals.[Link] |
HoustonDon
Member
Houston
561 Posts
11/99
|  Posted - Jun 20 2000 : 10:41PM
I'd say having a "cheaper by $1.50" code would work. Also, have a "movies under X dollars" at each site function (ie: letting us plug in a value like dvdpricesearch.com) would be cool. It wouldn't have anything to do with competition since you'd basically be looking at a price range for a store. [Link] |
Drew Black
broken crankshaft
8009 Posts
9/99
| Posted - Jun 20 2000 : 11:33PM
I think I will create a drop down list for cheaper than by $X. The range will be $2.00 to $10.00+ in 50 cent increments. I ran the reports at $2.00 and a few stores had over 200 "deals". That seems like an awful lot of data.
When I finally do the advanced search page I will inlcude the option for a price range along with studios, categories, performers (coming soon!), etc.
I've been trying to avoid price search features that require multiple page indexes. A multi-page result set is more taxing on the server. In some cases it's a necessary evil. I'll do my best to make it easy to use.[This message has been edited by Drew Black (edited June 21, 2000).] [Link] |
Drew Black
broken crankshaft
8009 Posts
9/99
| Posted - Jun 21 2000 : 6:47PM
In the land of ADT, ask and [url=426464]you shall receive</A.
Check it out and let me know if it does the job.[This message has been edited by Drew Black (edited June 21, 2000).] [Link] |
