Topics

Price Drop & Availability Alerts

The ability to generate alerts based on price and availability changes is essentially camelcamper's main feature. To track a product, one sets a price threshold at and below which an alert is generated, assuming the product is also in stock. In this context, alerts can be thought of as log entries, which are delivered via email, Twitter, or RSS feed, containing current price information and useful links (Backcountry.com product page, camel page, etc).

Registration is not required to use this functionality, nor do you even have to give your email address. However, registered users get access to a single RSS feed containing alerts for all of their tracked products, in addition to the Camel Management page and the Wishlist Importer (see below).

 Creating a Camel
Example email alert
User alerts RSS feed

Price History Charts

Price history charts are another major part of camelcamper's core functionality. Every product page contains graphs of the price variations over time for each of the three price types, as well as the high/low/average prices. Price and availability data is updated from Backcountry.com constantly to ensure it is as accurate as possible, but should always be checked on Backcountry.com before making a purchase.

 Price history example

Backcountry.com Product Search

Search is accessed via the box at the top right of every page, or by clicking "Backcountry.com Products" in the menu at the top of the page.

Search results are displayed tabularly and, amongst other things, contain the Backcountry.com/New/Used prices and links to price history RSS feeds for each price type, which are useful if you'd rather not actually create a price watch.

 Amazon search results

The Camelizer - Firefox & Google Chrome extensions

We have browser add-ons for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome that support Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, and all of our other retailers. The Camelizer lets you view our price history charts without leaving retailer product pages, and makes it easy to create price watches when viewing retailer sites.

Click here to find out more about the Camelizer.

Registration Optional, Hugs Mandatory

Signing up for things is a pain in the neck, so camelcamper makes it completely optional. You don't even have to give your email address to track products, although it helps if you want to receive email alerts. If you don't, you can simply add the camel's RSS feed to your newsreader and await the alerts patiently.

If you do choose to sign up or receive email alerts, rest assured that I will not sell or distribute your information to anyone without your consent.

Those brave souls who take the plunge -- much like Bastian in the Neverending Story 2 -- and register receive access to the Camel Management and Wishlist Importer tools, which are very useful and look good on your resume. Any price watches created prior to your registration, using the same email address, will be moved over to your account as we check them for pricing updates. This may take up to 8 hours or so, and they will appear to trickle in.

Camel Price Watch Management Interface

Accessible by clicking the "Your Price Watch" link at the top of every page, your list of price watch is laid out in table format: you get the name and picture of the product with a small description; your desired price as well as the price at which you began tracking the product, and the current price; and of course links to all manner of camel, products, and Backcountry.com pages.

To help you keep track of what is sure to be a very large herd of camels, there are a number of filters available--which remain active until disabled or you logout--to help refine the list, as follows:

  • Status - is your camel active (woot, the price you want!), updated, unchanged, or perhaps new?
  • Price Type - there are three price types available for your tracking needs: Backcountry.com's price, and Third Party New and Used prices. You can track one or all three!
  • Category - this filter is based on the Backcountry.com category of your tracked products.
  • Artist - as a music fan I thought it would be nice to list the artists (with picture!) of any musical camels you might have.
  • Product Name - the first letter of every product you're tracking is made into a filter option.

Your camel list is automatically split into pages of 25. Also, each product has a checkbox; this lets you edit or delete multiple camels at the same time, using the dropdown menu at the bottom of the list.

Twitter Notifications

In addition to emails and RSS feeds, we can also send price drop alerts via Twitter. All you have to do is enter your Twitter username when you create or edit a Camel price watch. You must also choose what kind of Twitter notification you prefer: public, which sends an @your_username reply; or private, which sends a Direct Message to you. Please note that you must follow @CamelConcierge for Direct Messages to work! It's Twitter's rule, not ours.

Registered users may define a default Twitter username and privacy setting by updating their user profile.