SpammingSquare 26 April, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Back in December I was looking for a replacement for the camera I was parted from a month earlier in Vietnam. One site, ShoppingSquare seemed to be offering a good price on a Canon 860IS, but I wasn’t sure if it was covered by a Canon Australia warranty – I’ve heard that Canon Australia will not cover any Canon cameras without the Australian warranty at all; a warning to those who are considering purchasing parallel or grey imports from Hong Kong and the like. Using ShoppingSquare’s “Click Here to Ask A Question” requires you to create an account. Okay, perhaps that is fair enough. Created an account, asked a question. The response indicated that the camera “comes with a seller warranty in Australia.” A further question to clarify the meaning of that, and I’m told,
This camera does not come with Canon warranty, however, we would be covering the warranty for Canon cameras that are purchased from our online store
Okay, reasonable, though not what I was looking for at the time. The sie seems to offer a never-ending supply of great deals on all manner of items, though their rate of contact is somewhat excesive – an email pretty much ever day. I’ve recently started receiving email from TopBuy as well, though, to the ShoppingSquare-registered address, which I’ve used exclusively for the ShoppingSquare account – one of the advantages of controlling your own internet domain, so wrote to ShoppingSquare:
Back off, ShoppingSquare. It’s bad enough that you seem to insist on mailing every day, but now I’m getting TopBuy emails as well – are you the same company, or have you violated my privacy by giving them the email address I gave you? Who else am I going to start receiving spam from?
I can’t find your privacy policy on your website – do you even have one? What sort of bogus operation are you running? Why should I trust you with my credit card details if you can’t even keep my email address to yourself?
[name witheld]
Sydney
While I was on the site I checked my account details, and deselected the “Yes! Send me email updates about new products and special offers” option. Interestingly, both ShopingSquare and TopBuy are businesses operating in New South Wales, unlike the vast majority of internet annoyances that are outside Australian jurisdiction, so hopefully they’ll be a little more compliant than others you might be trying to shake off. We’ll see.
Links have not been supplied to the noted sites in this post as I don’t especially want to drive traffic towards them, though I’d say purchasing from them is probably quote okay. ShoppingSquare is one of the sites included in Shopbot product searches, for example.
Do your own research. Here are some links to some Australian price comparison / search sites. Quotes are taken directly from the sites’ about pages (but are not the entirety of those pages).
Shopbot
Link: Shopbot.com.au
Shopbot is Australia’s premier price comparison site offering the best service possible for customers and merchants alike. Established in 2004, our experienced team has fine-tuned the site to make it is as efficient and easy to use as possible. Shopbot’s main function is to connect savvy customers with reliable retailers, and it is with this in mind that we will continue to improve the site in response to your feedback and inquiries.
staticICE
Link: staticICE.com.au
Also: staticICE.co.nz (New Zealand)
staticICE (ABN 95 989 670 953), based in Sydney, is Australia’s comprehensive computer hardware and gadget price comparison search engine. We simplify the price shopping experience by searching inventory from over 260 Australian retailers.
AusPrices
This site has a handy feature of allowing you to narrow your search to retailers in a certain state, eg NSW. Excellent!
Link: AusPrices.com.au
AusPricesTM is a product comparison web site to help Australian users find the product they want, and at the cheapest price. Prices are updated at least every 24 hours (currently twice a day). Some shops may choose to update their information more often.
GetPrice
Link: GetPrice.com.au
Getprice is an Australian company that provides a free online comparison shopping resource for you, the consumer. Our aim is to help you make smart, informed purchasing decisions, by arming you with as much information as possible. Getprice aims to cover all of the key stages in the consumer buying cycle and address your questions along the way, i.e.:
- Which product meets my individual needs? E.g. Plasma vs LCD
- Read product reviews
- Compare products side-by-side
- View the price history of a product
- Read merchant reviews
- Compare prices
GetOnce
GetOnce is unique in that it allows you to (de)select which sites you want to search within a category, with the obvious side benefit that you are being shown up-front which sites it uses.
Link: GetOnce.com.au
The GetOnce website is designed to provide users with one central gateway to search a range of websites at once.
Typically when a user searches for a product or service on the Internet they are faced with the laborious task of finding relevant websites to search, learning how to navigate those websites, keeping track of what site sells which item and finally making a purchase.
GetOnce simplifies this process by providing a uniform “One Stop” search interface where users can quickly find what they’re looking for. GetOnce does not actually sell any products, it simply provides a mechanism to search leading retail websites within particular product categories.
ShopFerret Australia
Link: ShopFerret.com.au
ShopFerret is a free service connecting consumers in Australia and New Zealand with all the information they need to make a smart shopping decision. We help you buy the right product from the best merchant at the lowest price.
Yahoo!7 Shopping
Link: shopping.yahoo.com.au
Yahoo!7 Shopping is a free comparison shopping service that empowers consumers to compare millions of products from thousands of retailers. The retailers listed on Yahoo!7 Shopping pay to participate in the DoorOne Merchant Network programme. Yahoo!7 Shopping is committed to providing shoppers with the most comprehensive online shopping experience on the Web. If you think a store is mis-categorised or should be added to our listings, please let us know here. If you have a consumer query related to a specific retailer, please contact them directly.
I think that’s enough for now. I’m sure there are others around. Send me a link to any others that you know of (if you happen to know they are good!).
-G.
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