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PriceZombie is shutting down

pricezombie.com

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Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#201

Post by mysql102 »

ryao wrote: post #94
forrestthewoods wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the lesson at all. Even if you follow the TOS those terms can change overnight and your business will die in the same way. If you are 100% reliant on another company you're entire existence depends on that relationship.

Unless they signed a legally binding contract that obligates them to continue the arrangement, they can terminate it at any time for any reason. Avoiding ToS violations does not prevent that.

I'm the owner of PZ. I spoke to the associates team for technical workarounds, including not using the API at all (e.g; purchasing the data from a 3rd party), in order to retain associate's status. The manager said it wouldn't matter if we abided by the ToS or not, Amazon did not want PZ.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#202

Post by mysql102 »

great_kraken wrote: post #7

Honestly I'm (selfishly) kind of glad that they're shutting down, as awful as that is. I browse Reddit a lot and the fact that every single time somebody posted a product, there would always be a PriceZombie bot commenting bugged me to no end.

The robot can ignore individuals if requested. Additionally the robot only posts in subreddits where the moderators have granted the bot permission to post. Thus it doesn't post anywhere where it isn't wanted. Your situation is best resolved by adding the bot to your ignore, since you don't want to see it at all.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#203

Post by unclebucknasty »

sangnoir wrote: post #181
meritt wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CCC has been around for a very long time. That seems very unlikely they 'haven't been caught yet'.

Well, PriceZombie was around for a long time too and they 'hadn't been caught' until recently. So maybe it's not unlikely

This is circular logic. Maybe there's another reason altogether.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#204

Post by mysql102 »

sangnoir wrote: post #188
InsideTrack wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. PriceZombie was not built on top of Amazon. PriceZombie indexes products and prices in over 100 online retailers. The developers always had the option of using the PZ website as a front end to gather personal shopping habits and other data that is valuable to advertising and marketing companies - which is what many (most?) price trackers do as their primary source of revenue. PZ opted to get their funding from ret…

> PriceZombie was not built on top of Amazon. Not technically for the reasons you stated. However, it is evident that PriceZombie was financially built on top of Amazon's Affiliate program. It's hard to argue against that when Amazon contributed 90% of revenue

That is dictated by where consumers end up shopping. You can diversify to thousands of stores, but if Amazon is the biggest seller, they will get the lion's share of the click throughs and purchases.

What PZ did was show users who shop at other stores, that Amazon was cheaper, and funnel users to Amazon. Sometimes Amazon wasn't cheaper, but I wonder if this is all about to change.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#205

Post by sangnoir »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #203
sangnoir wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, PriceZombie was around for a long time too and they 'hadn't been caught' until recently. So maybe it's not unlikely

This is circular logic. Maybe there's another reason altogether.

It is not circular logic, but proof by contradiction.

>Maybe there's another reason altogether.

That's what I'm thinking as well.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#206

Post by mysql102 »

jayess wrote: post #173
stale2002 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were TOLD that they were 100% in compliance with the rules and that there was no problem. And then one day things changed for no reason.

Told by whom? An Indian online chat customer service rep? Some sort of account executive?

Associates team is on shore and there is no way to directly contact them. They contact you.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#207

Post by unclebucknasty »

They note that Amazon is "afraid of services that compare their prices with other stores".

It's more likely Amazon just doesn't see the value. Why would they want to pay a company to drive traffic to Amazon, only when Amazon's prices are lower? Otherwise, they actively drive traffic to their competitors? Amazon is not in dire need of traffic, and with their algorithmic pricing, information is an advantage.

Perhaps there is a business case that can be made. But, OTOH, it doesn't strike me as irrational that Amazon would rather not.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#208

Post by DiabloD3 »

some-guy wrote: post #200
r00fus wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prime makes a lot more sense if, say, you have spouse and/or parents buying stuff for 5+ individuals. For a single person, yeah it likley doesn't make sense unless you happen to use Prime Videos or something.

Life hack: I have a Prime account as well as the Amazon credit card, and I share it with several of my closest friends. I pay for the account, but the caveat is that my friends (who I trust very much) must use the credit card and then send me money via Venmo. Every purchase they make I get 3% back. It cancels out the $99/year fairly quickly and then some. Also unlimited photo storage is a huge plus for me. Against th…

The Amazon store card issued by GE Capital is 5% back.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#209

Post by DiabloD3 »

Dear PriceZombie:

I will pay you $x a year to keep your service functional. Go figure out what x is, given the number of active users you have , and what it costs to keep the service open.

Also, email me at pmcfarland@exelion.net. I am a service provider, I might be able to help you cut down your cost of operating.

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