What's Shakin'?

It's been a while since we posted to the blog, but everyone here at Price Protectr is hard at work trying to save you money!

A few weeks ago we announced the launch of Price Protectr Business Solutions and debuted it at the Shop.org conference in Las Vegas. As a consumer, that means you'll begin seeing the ability to set price alerts directly from retailer sites, powered by Price Protectr -- the name you know and trust.

As a retailer, it means you'll be able to increase conversions by re-engaging with price sensitive customers who might have gone somewhere else to make a purchase. If you have an online store and would like to learn more about how Price Protectr Business Solutions can help your business, shoot us an email at b2b@priceprotectr.com!

On another note, we're giving our emails a facelift! We've been hard at work redesigning our emails to bring more information and improved functionality. If you're interested in helping beta test them and provide feedback, let us know!

Labels: announcements, business solutions, new features

Hopefully everyone had a stress-free tax day! Have you decided what you're going to do with that big fat refund?

Follow us on Twitter - we'll tweet our best deals as we find them throughout the day. Get great sales as they happen and find some cool new stuff at a sweet price!

Labels: announcements, twitter

This morning, Circuit City posted this message on their website:

Circuit City would like to thank all of the customers who have shopped with us over the past 60 years. Unfortunately, we announced on January 16, 2009, that we are going out of business.

It's a sad day, and we're sorry to see them go. They've been one of Price Protectr's most popular retailers for years and (personally) one of our favorite places to shop.

The economic crisis is hitting everyone pretty hard these days, but that's all the more reason to use Price Protectr! (Where else can you find sales without even looking for them?) If you have friends ore family who could use a little extra money in their wallet, tell them about Price Protectr!

Labels: announcements, retailers

Price Protectr was recently featured on Tech Closeup! The piece came out really well and answers a lot of questions about what we do, how we got started, and even how we work with the retailers. Check it out, pass it on to your friends, and let us know what you think!

Labels: announcements, video

We're always looking for ways to get more great deals out into the hands of Price Protectr users. When we first launched, all we offered was price protection. Over the past year and a half we've expanded to add price watching & targeting, deal alerts, price drops of the day emails, RSS feeds, and more -- all features to help you find the best deals and keep more money in your wallets.

Prices tend to drop quite a bit right around the holidays and we wanted another way to highlight all the great sales - so we launched LightningSale.com. It covers seven of the most popular categories of consumer electronics; HDTVs, digital cameras, camcorders, GPS devices, blu-ray, memory & storage, and gaming.

Each section highlights the most recent price drops in that category and even gives it a "Lightning Score" so you know how good of a deal it is without having to do any math!

Just like the sales on Price Protectr, the prices for these items can go back up any time, so jump on a deal if you find something you like! And, of course, all the category pages have RSS feeds so you can peruse the price drops using your favorite feed reader.

So check out LightningSale.com and let us know what you think! Hopefully we can help you and your family save some money this holiday season.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from everyone here at Price Protectr.

Labels: announcements, lightning sale

Our friends over at NukePrice have integrated with Price Protectr! They have a cool plugin for Internet Explorer that reminds you to price protect your purchases when you add them to your shopping cart. Here's an excerpt from their blog:

Great news! We have integrated price protection with PriceProtectr.com. If you install our IE plugin and shop at 100+ supported retailers' website with Internet Explorer, we will notify PriceProtectr and get your purchase protected. Our IE plugin has no toolbar at all and notify you only when you add an item to the shopping cart. You can even get price protection automatically without any clicks.

So if you love using IE, head on over to their site and check out the NukePrice plugin! And, if you're just shopping around, you can still the Price Protectr Toolbar for Intenet Explorer to search for deals and watch and target prices. It's a killer combo to help maximize your online shopping savings!

Labels: announcements, toolbar

We've been promising an IE toolbar for a while and it's finally arrived. It has all the same great functionality as the Firefox toolbar and works in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7.

Why should Firefox users have all the fun? Click here to download the Price Protectr toolbar for Internet Explorer or check out the toolbar page for more details!

Labels: announcements

Due to overhwelming response, we've made the Savings Widget even easier to use! It's now a simple image which means you can post it anywhere -- your blog, email signature, forums, My Space, and just about everywhere else. We've even added a FAQ about how to add the widget to your Facebook profile. You can find the updated HTML code in your account settings page.

Labels: announcements

Tonight we're happy to announce the Beta launch of our Price Protectr widgets!


The first one is our Hot Deals Widget. The Hot Deals Widget lets visitors search for deals and add alerts. It also lists the most recent price drops so you can help your visitors find the latest great deals.


The second is Your Savings Widget. Your Savings Widget will show your friends how much you're saving! Anytime something you've protected drops in price, your widget will update automatically.

For more information, check out our new widgets page. As always, we're happy to hear your feedback and suggestions!

Labels: announcements, widgets

We just set up a Facebook fan page! If you use Facebook, head on over and sign up as a Price Protectr fan. We'll be doing some cool promotions and offers in the future (tee shirts, anyone?) and as a Facebook fan, you'll have first dibs :-)

Labels: announcements

Today's a pretty momentous Two-Fer. For almost two years now, we've been focusing almost exclusively on price protection. A couple months back we introduced deal alerts, price watching, and price targeting -- a few more powerful tools for your online shopping arsenal. We've been getting a lot of requests lately to support retailers without price protection policies so, without further ado, todays Two-Fer adds two popular retailers without price protection policies; Newegg and Ritz Camera.

Labels: announcements, retailers

We're in the process of sending out the second ever Price Protectr newsletter! (A couple of you might have gotten two copies, sorry about that :-/)

It's hard to believe the first newsletter was sent out almost a year ago! I don't know about you, but I get hundreds of emails every day, so we try to keep Price Protectr emails to a minimum (except for price drop alerts!). I'd like to send out the newsletters a little more frequently than once a year if people find them useful. We try to keep them short and interesting, and we welcome any feedback you might have. If you're a new user or didn't receive the newsletter, you can read it online.

We have also updated our privacy policy to reflect some of the new services we're providing such as deal alerts, price targeting, and price watching. Not much has changed policy-wise -- we still value the privacy of each and every user and will never sell your personal information to third parties -- but we changed the organization a bit so it's worth a look over if you're interested.

Lots of cool new stuff in the works, so come back soon. And, as always, thanks for using Price Protectr!

Labels: announcements

Calling all Price Protectr users living in the San Francisco Bay area! A nationally syndicated television show is looking to do a piece on us, and we need some enthusiastic users to go in front of the cameras and tell the everyone about your Price Protectr experience. The show will be broadcast in over 65 million housholds, so tell your mom and your friends to tune in. Oh, and shoot us an email with your contact information if you're interested in helping out!

Labels: announcements

We see a lot of big price drops around here, and usually they're on big ticket items like HDTVs. Well today we found one on a collection of books at Amazon marked down from $1,862.00 to $15.00. That's a pretty sweet price drop!

Unfortunately, the item has sold out in the amount of time it's taken me to write this blog post, but I did happen to grab a screenshot with 2 items left:

So keep protecting your purchases. You never know how much you'll save!

Labels: announcements

Like saving money and finding great deals? Want to write pieces that will be read by thousands of people? Well, the Price Protectr blog is looking for guest bloggers!

Whether it's a one-time story about saving money, a monthly product review, or a weekly roundup of the best deals, we're looking for users who can help make the Price Protectr blog a better resource for shoppers across the web.

Interested? Shoot us an email with some of your ideas!

Labels: announcements

If you're a Best Buy Reward Zone Premier Silver member, Price Protectr just got a little easier. Log into your account settings and choose the Premier Silver checkbox from your retailer-specific options, and we'll price protect all your Best Buy purchases for the extended 45 days!

Labels: announcements

The Price Protectr Toolbar for Firefox now supports price watching and price targeting! We also added a bunch of sweet new icons. Pretty cool.


If you have the extension, make sure to update it to get the great new functionality. And, if you use Firefox and still don't have the toolbar, you can download it here. It even hides away when you don't need it (we know how valuable your screen space is).

For all you Internet Explorer users, our IE toolbar is coming soon!

Labels: announcements

We usually add new retailers on Tuesday, but today's TGIF!

It turns out Zappos terminated their famous price protection policy way back in February, and we totally missed it. Anyway, we've removed them from our supported retailer list and added ShoeMall in their place. They have a 15 day price protection policy and a 110% price match guarantee. Not too bad!

But, before you start thinking price protection policies are on their way out, consider Best Buy's new Reward Zone Premier Silver Membership; if you spend $2500 a year at Best Buy, you qualify for their program which offers a sweet 45 day price protection policy, among other things (thanks Chris). And, if you're someone who spends $2500 a year at Best Buy, you can definitely use Price Protectr! We'll be adding support for BBRZPSMs within the next few days.

Labels: announcements, retailers

For about a year and a half, Price Protectr has been providing shoppers with free price protection notification. We've protected almost $22 million in purchases and notified our users to over $1.2 million in price drops. That's not too shabby, especially considering how stoked we were to hit $10,000 in savings back in the day.

Earlier this month we launched deal alerts which allow shoppers to sign up for keyword-based alerts on the best deals we come across on the web. We've already sent out hundreds of deal alerts, and our users are snatching up some pretty sweet deals.

Today we're happy to announce the next evolution of Price Protectr as your shopping companion: price targeting and price watching.


Price Targeting allows you to set a price on an item you're looking to buy, and we'll notify you when the price drops below your target price.

Price Watching lets you add an item you're interested in, and we notify you when the price changes.

Price watching and price targeting -- just two more tools in your shopping arsenal to help you get the best price before you buy.

There are also 2 new sections in your My Stuff account to help manage all your watched and targeted items. And, when you actually decide to buy one of them, adding them for price protection is as simple as clicking the "Move to Price Protection" link!

As always, Price Protectr is completely free to use. So go nuts! And let us know if you have any comments or suggestions, we're always happy to hear from our users.

Labels: announcements, new features

There's an updated Firefox toolbar tonight! We removed some of the buttons to make it simpler and leave room for more coupons. We also added the ability to add a deal alert right from the toolbar, making it easier to set alerts as you shop.

What's that, you still haven't heard of our toolbar? It has a lot of features to help you put money back in your wallet, and it even hides away when you're not using it. Check out our toolbar page for more info!

Labels: announcements, toolbar

Every once in a while we get contacted by reporters looking to interview Price Protectr users. This time, we're looking for users in Columbus, Ohio. If you or someone you know are interested in being interviewed and maybe even being on TV, send us an email!

Labels: announcements

Today's two-fer adds Chapters Indigo and L.L.Bean to our list of supported retailers and brings our grand total to 100 supported retailers!

Labels: announcements, retailers

We had a few problems with the date picker this weekend. If you protected an item, please double check your My Stuff account make make sure the dates are correct. If they aren't, you can delete the item and add it again.

Sorry for any inconvenience and thanks for using Price Protectr!

Labels: announcements

Remember the "Drop of the Day" posts we used to do all week long highlighting one of the best price drop of the day? Well, they're back and better than ever! Now you can sign up to receive price drops of the day in email form! We're including the biggest price drop of the day, as well as the 5 biggest percentage price drops. It's great stuff, log into your account settings and sign up today!

Labels: announcements

We've been getting a lot of great feedback on the Price Protectr Toolbar... and we're listening! The newest version hides automatically when you're not at a supported retailer so it's tucked out of the when you're not using it. Pretty cool.

Don't have the toolbar yet? Find out more!

Labels: announcements

Hey all, we had some problems publishing to the blog last week so apologies for things being so quiet around here. The good news is, everything's working again. Look for a new Two-Fer Tuesday post in a few hours!

Labels: announcements

We had a couple big links to us and a little unexpected downtime this morning. Everything's back up and apologies to anyone who had trouble accessing the site this morning.

In case you're wondering where all the traffic came from, we got covered by the New York Times in A Universe of Gadget Advice and MSN Money in 6 Sites Every Shopper Should Know.

Thanks for stopping by!

Labels: announcements, links

It's another call out for a Price Protectr TV interview! If you (or someone you know) live near Atlanta and would be interested in helping out, shoot us an email.

Labels: announcements

Thanks to everyone who entered the Name the Owl Contest. We had so many amazing entries, it was really hard to pick a winner. In fact, we spent a few weeks going through the initial list and another 2 weeks debating between our last couple favorites. Because there were so many great submissions, we decided to award prizes for 3 runner up entries along with our grand prize.

And, without further delay, everyone say hello to Lowlo, the Price Protectr Owl!

The winning entry was submitted by Pete Borini from Rexford, NY. Pete was gracious enough to send us a photo with Lowlo perched on his shoulder. Here's his winning entry:

Name: Lowlo

Bio: Lowlo was born in the sleepy forests of Cubbington Cove, with an eye for low prices and a hunger for the LOWEST price. He was happy in the forest, living his owl life and protecting his owl friends' online purchases from unexpected price drops. But Lowlo's hunger was growing and growing. He wanted more. He wanted a home where he could protect not just owls, but shoppers everywhere...and protect them all from unexpected price drops. So when Lowlo saw PriceProtectr.com and their unwavering dedication to price protection and getting everyone the information they need, he knew he was home... and took his place on the site. That's why Lowlo's always there -- every minute of every day, giving you the courage to buy with confidence. So go ahead -- pull the trigger and make that buy... because if your purchase price goes down, you'll be the first to know about it. Use the information. Get your money back. And when that money shows up on your credit card statement, just say "Thanks, PriceProtectr and welcome home, Lowlo."

Welcome, indeed.

And our runners up, in no particular order...

Hector Protectr, submitted by Jamie Ryan from Glen Allen, VA:

Name: Hector Protectr

Bio: Hector, being a nocturnal creature, loves to be up at night. But when he noticed the "people" were not sleeping at night because they were losing sleep over financial concerns, he decided to fly in and do something about it. Hector the Protectr spends his time helping people by taking the stress out of price shopping. They can buy their "stuff" and not lose any sleep because they know Hector is searching the skies, stores and internet hight and low to make sure that when a price is lowered, we know about it, save money and sleep soundly. Hector Protectr, a different kind of sleep remedy!

Athena, submitted by Lindsey Hardegree from Winston-Salem, NC:

Name: Athena

Bio: Athena is always on the lookout for the lowest prices, even when you're asleep! She came to PriceProtectr as a young little owl with a love for bargains and the knowledge on how to find them. She knew she had a knack for staying up late into the night (ya know, nocturnal) and getting the best deals for all her little woodland creature friends. But, seeing as how Athena is very wise, she knew there must be more to life than finding the cheapest nuts for her squirrel friends. Now that Athena has found her calling (or hooting, if you will) in life, she enjoys flying to exotic locations and knitting. And she never misses her favorite shows on the National Geographic channel!

Scouter, submitted by Bryan Kazdan from Boston, MA:

Name: Scouter

Bio: The price spying silent flying bird of justice.

He has traveled all the way from the forests of Arkansas to ease your shopping anxiety. He soars through the sky to find where your riches have been lost, and like perfectly true compass brings you right to them. He is the modern day Robin Hood with only one goal, to protect the innocent from spending too much. He has made his home at the Price Protectr where his noble deeds can benefit all who take the time to visit. You have probably seen him before and didn't even know it, he is blindingly fast, and moves without a sound, the perfect price spy. Because of his honorable actions, Price Protectr was very proud to name Scouter the company mascot.

Congratulations to Pete, Jamie, Lindsey, and Bryan! And thanks again to everyone who entered the contest for making it so hard to pick a winner.

Labels: announcements

Have you used Price Protectr and saved some money? We're looking for a couple users who would be interested in being interviewed for an upcoming New York Post article. If you're interested, shoot us an email with your contact info!

Update (11/29): The story's finished and will be run on Sunday. Thanks to everyone who volunteered to help!

Labels: announcements

Wow, it's been an exciting week around here. About a week ago we passed the $7 million mark in protected purchases. Well, today we passed the $8 million mark (by more than $150K). Keep telling your friends about us. Let's hit $10 million by the end of the year!

We're happy to announce another new feature tonight, deals search. We don't actually publish all the price drops we find, but now you can search all our deals and price drops. Let's say you're in the market for a new Garmin GPS -- head on over to the deals page, do a search, and viola!

You might also notice there are some new icons for deals. One is for coupons and special offers from supported retailers, and the other is for price drops. And, just in case you can't figure out which is which, there's a new FAQ on it as well.

Hope everyone likes the new search. Feel free to leave comments or send us an email with feedback.

Labels: announcements, statistics

As of this weekend, Price Protectr users have saved over $400,000 and protected more than $7 million in transactions! Those numbers are only going to get bigger over the holidays. Don't forget Price Protectr when shopping this year!

We added some great new deals from Altrec and Best Buy. We also moved a few links around in the masthead to make it easier to get to the deals page.

Labels: announcements, statistics

Our two new retailers tonight: Game Stop and Overstock.com.

For those of you eagerly awaiting the winner from the 'Name the Owl' Contest, we're still going through entries. Hopefully we'll be able to announce a winner soon!

And, last but certainly not least, we've been making a bunch of backend changes which will allow us to add some cool new feature in the coming weeks. We've tested it pretty well, but if you see anything that looks out of the ordinary, please don't hesitate to send an email.

Enjoy the new supported retailers and have a great week!

Labels: announcements, retailers

The contest is officially over. Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry! We'll be going through the hundreds of submissions over the new week and picking a winner.

Stay tuned, maybe it'll be you!

Labels: announcements

The 'Name the Owl' contest is ending tonight, so today is your last chance to enter for the chance to win a $400 shopping spree to your favorite supported retailer!

We'll be ending the contest at 12:00 PM PST and will be picking a winner and runners up over the next week. Don't forget to tell your friends and family who haven't entered yet. You never know, if they win you might get a sweet holiday present!

Labels: announcements

First things first, this week's two-fer adds popular requests Lowes and White House Black Market to the list of supported retailers. Keep the retailer requests coming! Maybe yours will make it next week.

Next, we added a bunch of great new deals over the weekend. Offers that last through the holidays for Altrec, offers ending this week for money off purchases at Best Buy, and a bunch of new free shipping coupon codes for Cooking.com.

You might also noticed the blog has changed. We're now powered by Blogger which lets us tag new posts and lets you leave comments and trackbacks. So welcome to the new-and-improved blog and speak up! We're interested in hearing what you have to say.

Labels: announcements, new features, retailers

We've had an overwhelming response to our Name the Owl Contest and have received some incredibly creative and zany entries. We were supposed to pick a winner today, but we were so amazed by some of the creativity, we've decided to extend the contest another month! So, if you haven't entered yet, make sure to do it by November 7th. That should be plenty of time to put together the winning entry and figure out how you'll be spending your $400.

Labels: announcements

Appologies to anyone who tried to add an item from Costco today. There was a small glitch which should be all fixed up. Just a quick reminder that if anyone encounters any problems with the site, feel free to send us an email and let us know!

Labels: announcements