New 'Mega Shopbot' Tool: Please give us your feedback

Edinburghlass_2

Numpty_Monkey wrote: »

I didn't get very far
Firefox3.02 popup blocker stopped all the pages

It gives you instructions on how to unblock the pop-up thingy for Firefox.

jessicamb

MSE_Martin wrote: »

which two edilass

I tried a DVD and got blank screens for mediapricer and pricerunner

Tojo_Ralph

...
A search on DVD's for "My Family" with IE7 WinXP SP3 looking for series 1 to 7 boxset opened four webpages.

Page 1. Shopping.com best price Amazon at £34.98.
Page 2. Kelkoo was way, way wide of the mark.
Page 3. Media Pricer went into never ending search mode.
Page 4. about:blank page appears.

Houston we have a problem, anticipate delayed launch.

With regard to the search opening multiple pages, IMHO it's hideous to see that happening on a price comparison website and it would be enough to stop me using such a website.

oliveoyl

Not so good here... I tried a search, it opened, or partly opened 7 new browser pages, froze for a few minutes, announced that Explorer had encountered an error and will now close, and proceeded to close all 7 new browser pages plus the original one.

IE7 on Windows XP

mountainchrisriver

There seems to be a mini pop up box that appears then disappears very quickly... not sure what it is, but it is an 'extra'...

Crabman

Using IE7 - Book search: Kelkoo required details to be entered directly into a blank form and media-pricer just wouldn't load, though I just tried the latter directly and the site seems to be having problems (anyone else tried directly?).

DVD search: results missing from pop-ups were Pricerunner and Search-a-book, one blank page loaded up so I'm not sure which of these two sites caused it, the URL bar stated "about:blank".

mountainchrisriver

would it be a good idea to be able to choose an affiliate or non-affiliate kelkoo link in the menu...

antispam246

Like everyone before me and after me, I know it's been explained as to why but still, multiple window pop-ups to reveal the results is a no no. There was another search engine that did this, same idea, it searched through all available engines. Can't recall what it's called but I doubt it's the only one. You really need to try and get it all into one.

When it states dvd, is that films only or games as well. I tried a game and basically got no results on all engines.

First Test DVD "Mamma Mia" - Firefox 2.0.0.18 WinXP Pro SP3

Tried Mamma Mia 1st and 3rd engine (pop-up) displayed nothing, just a blank page.Shopping.com and Kelkoo both worked.

I'm all for adding the second lot of sites such as Play and Amazon, these kind of sites will always produce highly competetive prices and are a very good reference, obviously you'll have the draw the line between getting a good number of comparisons and too many. Just remember although some sites may have seeemingly good or average prices for one product they're still going to have many items which are ridiculously over priced.

Second Test Book - "Patricia Cornwell" Firefox 2.0.0.18 WinXP Pro SP3

All worked except first search engine which was blank as above.

i'm using Firefox 2.0.0.18 on XP Pro SP3

I'm sure it will be popular but there are some very very good search bots which collate all the information into single pages, although these are more specific to a single type or genre of products.

I just hope it will be maintained when it goes live and not left to rot like the cashback search engine thingy m'jig.

Edit:

- I also get the very small window poppingup and closing very quickly, this occurs when I go to the link to the shop bot.

- Whenever you do a search the shop bot link is refreshed and if you made any changed, i.e unticked certain engines, it resets them to default. Not necessarily a problem but could cause people a bit of aggravation if they didn't want to use a specific engine for multiple searches.

Third Test CD "Muse" - Firefox 2.0.0.18 WinXPPro SP3

Media-Pricer just keeps trying to load, enver gets anywhere
Price runner worked fine
Only tried it with these 2 engines

Edit

- I know this is probably nit picking but you ask users to disable their pop-up blocker. I'd advise them to simply "Allow" the url for the mega shop bot as to not disable it completely as it's a security and safety feature thats genuinely useful.

In firefox it has an "Exceptions" button next to "Block pop-up windows" tick box

Tojo_Ralph

mountainchrisriver wrote: »

would it be a good idea to be able to choose an affiliate or non-affiliate kelkoo link in the menu...

Affiliate links?

MSE_Martin

Hi folks,

Thanks for all the open feedback. The new windows system is the only way we can do this. Otherwise the whole system simply doesn't work. There's no consistency of information from teh sites so they can't be produced in a results table.

Also we dont want to be responsible for providing the info in case it is incorrect. When you get a price - i want that to come from teh other shopbots not us and the new window system does that.

This isn't without precedent. Its how tripadviser does its comparisons for example.