Argos Chat Thread #1

bored_newbie

Personally, I'm only interested in two stores. If I was desperate for something, I might extend it to four or five but realistically I couldn't see myself driving an hour unless it was a big ticket item. Maybe you could do a poll to see how many people actually use?

Quazzie

witnessmenow wrote: »

Hey Guys,

So anyone who has visited checkargos since last night will see that I took the site down. Argos blocked requests from my server to their site, so I can't check stock anymore.

As you probably know, Argos website struggled over the weekend and obviously they felt the site contributed to that.

To be honest, we are probably hitting them more than we need to. Every time our product page is hit once, we hit Argos 40 (or however number of stores) times to load the stock status of each store.

So one way I was thinking of reducing the load on Argos would be to reduce the number of stores users check

Taking me as an example, I only care about a few stores: Athlone & Galway mainly, maybe Longford, Tullamore and then at a stretch the 3 Limerick stores. Only if I was posting a deal somewhere would I care if its in stock anywhere else.

So if I only checked these stores this would reduce my load on Argos from 40 requests to 7, which is a big difference, but I'm still getting the information i want out of it.

So my question for you guys is, any suggestions on how to do this ? I was thinking maybe the first time you hit the site you are asked to check the stores you care about, limited to 15 or 20. You could change this list at anytime by visiting a settings page. (This would persist on the device you are hitting from, you would need to create a new list on a different device). I know it would be a pain to have to set up on first visit, but it would make stock checking faster for you and help reduce the load on Argos

Also maybe have an option to check stock in all stores, but have it behind something that makes it slower or something to discourage its use (only after a minute on the page does the option become available or something). This would make it still an option if you wanted to post a deal or whatever.

Any thoughts on this? Or any other suggestions on how to handle the limiting of the stores?

I was gonna suggest search by province, but the example you gave is one that wouldn't comply to that. In fact you'd be searching three provinces. The county by county is probably the best way,

bored_newbie

Quazzie wrote: »

I was gonna suggest search by province, but the example you gave is one that wouldn't comply to that. In fact you'd be searching three provinces. The county by county is probably the best way,

I'd prefer individual checkboxes with a maximum number to choose from.
People might have family members in another county for example. Just a suggestion by the way.

i.e. Store by store, rather than county by county. As some counties have a few stores.

JDxtra

Argos got hammered in the UK and Ireland in terms of web traffic volume during the 3 for 2 toys offer period. I expect their web team are looking at the sources generating large volumes of traffic and blocking them. They probably thought Check Argos was a DoS attack!

In fairness though, Argos should hire you to implement a decent stock check page on their own site.

Mr Bloat

Asking people to select a number of stores at the outset would be my preferred method. I would generally only be interested in checking the Cork stores myself and may extend the search to Limerick or Waterford very occasionally if it was a big discounted item.

Whatever method you use, you will have to have a limit the options for people to choose at the start because a lot/most people (especially those outside this thread that found the site by accident or by Googling) would probably just choose the maximum possible results without thinking about it or the effect it would have.

nava

witnessmenow wrote: »

Any thoughts on this? Or any other suggestions on how to handle the limiting of the stores?

I think the option to select the stores will be a good idea, limit it to 4-5 max, like in my case only interested on a few stores, block searches to all stores, make it mandatory to select stores, also when clicking on a link from boards.ie show your previously selected stores.

If Argos are going to block checkargos they should provide a similar option.

shamrock55

Will the 3for2 on toys be back again before xmas?

Nollog

witnessmenow wrote: »

Hey Guys,

So anyone who has visited checkargos since last night will see that I took the site down. Argos blocked requests from my server to their site, so I can't check stock anymore.

As you probably know, Argos website struggled over the weekend and obviously they felt the site contributed to that.

To be honest, we are probably hitting them more than we need to. Every time our product page is hit once, we hit Argos 40 (or however number of stores) times to load the stock status of each store.

So one way I was thinking of reducing the load on Argos would be to reduce the number of stores users check

Taking me as an example, I only care about a few stores: Athlone & Galway mainly, maybe Longford, Tullamore and then at a stretch the 3 Limerick stores. Only if I was posting a deal somewhere would I care if its in stock anywhere else.

So if I only checked these stores this would reduce my load on Argos from 40 requests to 7, which is a big difference, but I'm still getting the information i want out of it.

So my question for you guys is, any suggestions on how to do this ? I was thinking maybe the first time you hit the site you are asked to check the stores you care about, limited to 15 or 20. You could change this list at anytime by visiting a settings page. (This would persist on the device you are hitting from, you would need to create a new list on a different device). I know it would be a pain to have to set up on first visit, but it would make stock checking faster for you and help reduce the load on Argos

Also maybe have an option to check stock in all stores, but have it behind something that makes it slower or something to discourage its use (only after a minute on the page does the option become available or something). This would make it still an option if you wanted to post a deal or whatever.

Any thoughts on this? Or any other suggestions on how to handle the limiting of the stores?

I sent you a suggested way of doing that (with cookie-based settings)

vicwatson

Caovyn Lineah wrote: »

Nope, they won't honour that deal today. You're better off waiting until the new offers start on Friday

Called them and they said once I had the mail from them showing one free they would honour it.

marcbrophy

I'd say it might be a temporary thing witness.
I mean the argos scanner must hit the site thousands of times at once in the morning to get their info.

They might just be upgrading their infastructre to better handle requests

mot2000ie

shamrock55 wrote: »

Will the 3for2 on toys be back again before xmas?

Don't think so but you never know. You just have to keep an eye out.

mot2000ie

Some good deals on Worx products (drills, sanders, screwdrivers etc). Don't know if they are any good though. :-)

uck51js9zml2yt

Could yu do the check by Provence. This give those of us with more stores in our area a full picture while allowing those with fewer local stores the chance to go within driving distance.

MiskyBoyy

mot2000ie wrote:

Some good deals on Worx products (drills, sanders, screwdrivers etc). Don't know if they are any good though. :-)

Worx are decent but I got a drill for 20 cheaper in homebase even tho the same parent company owns both Argos and homebase.

sue97

Can't find the iPod touch for 199. Can you forward a link please.

maxiiim

Scanner "gently" hitting its vendors
No more then 20 hits at any one time, plus checking time it takes for server to response, if increases - intensity drops.

I will send my suggestions to Brian - in a nutshell - cache results - if same article called in 5 min - don't hit argos - give previous result.
Skyscanner does it like that.

marcbrophy wrote: »

I'd say it might be a temporary thing witness.
I mean the argos scanner must hit the site thousands of times at once in the morning to get their info.

They might just be upgrading their infastructre to better handle requests

Gulliver

mot2000ie wrote: »

Some good deals on Worx products (drills, sanders, screwdrivers etc). Don't know if they are any good though. :-)

Careful with the cordless tools, a lot of them don't come with a battery, which is €53.99. So add that to the price of the tool if you don't have a battery already.

Quazzie

maxiiim wrote: »

I will send my suggestions to Brian - in a nutshell - cache results - if same article called in 5 min - don't hit argos - give previous result.
Skyscanner does it like that.

That's not accurate though, and Check Argos has always been accurate which is something that the owner can pride himself on. I know if I see CA telling me something is in stock and I go to reserve it and it isn't I'd stop using CA.

maxiiim

I don't think argos factors in stock levels straight away - i would say there is a time lag (needs to be checked).
On the other side if item is out of stock everywhere - no point of checking it more then once every 5 min.

Quazzie wrote: »

That's not accurate though, and Check Argos has always been accurate which is something that the owner can pride himself on. I know if I see CA telling me something is in stock and I go to reserve it and it isn't I'd stop using CA.

joujoujou

In my personal opinion - tickbox for each store with limited number to choose from + out of stock/orderable items from cache.

marcbrophy

maxiiim wrote: »

Scanner "gently" hitting its vendors
No more then 20 hits at any one time, plus checking time it takes for server to response, if increases - intensity drops.

I will send my suggestions to Brian - in a nutshell - cache results - if same article called in 5 min - don't hit argos - give previous result.
Skyscanner does it like that.

No worries pal
I was just trying to look on the positive side. If your scanner was doing a bulk update at once and not causing any issues, then it would be good news for Brian to see about getting his server off the blacklist.

But, you guys know more about the argos servers capacity and load balancing than I ever would, so I'll leave it in your capable hands

Personally, being in Limerick, I would only ever care about the results of the 3 Limerick stores. The rest is great to have, but ultimately unecessary.

Best of luck!

Doodah7

maxiiim wrote: »

I don't think argos factors in stock levels straight away - i would say there is a time lag (needs to be checked).
On the other side if item is out of stock everywhere - no point of checking it more then once every 5 min.

Argos updates straightaway. Quite often I have checked stock levels, reserved the last item in stock, checked again and both the Argos site and Checkargos will report it out of stock.

Interrobang

For me, tick boxes for individual stores would be handiest. I'm really only interested in three Cork stores, but from time time I'd check stores near friends and family in other counties for big discount items or if I'm trying to track down things for birthdays or Christmas.

It's a shame they blocked it. I probably wouldn't shop as often in Argos if it weren't for the CheckArgos site making it so handy, especially with that lovely new list compiler.

muffler

shamrock55 wrote: »

3for2 on toys seems to be gone, does anyone know if they will bring this back before xmas ??

shamrock55 wrote: »

Will the 3for2 on toys be back again before xmas?

vicwatson wrote: »

Called them and they said once I had the mail from them showing one free they would honour it.

You might want to take a leaf out of vicwatson's book and give them a call. No one here is going to know the answer

Slow_Runner

sue97 wrote: »

Can't find the iPod touch for 199. Can you forward a link please.

Gone up to 229, I picked one up yesterday for 199 - didn't stay down for long

Popple3

Just a small suggestion on how we could help lower the load from Check Argos. I only care about the Athlone and Longford stores, so I'm happy to just use Argos's own stock checker, since it'll show me Longford when Athlone is out of stock anyway.

I've ended up on Check Argos a decent amount from this thread because that's the only link being posted. Perhaps make it a rule that we all post direct Argos links along with Check Argos for people who don't want to check multiple stores? Not sure how much it would help, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

tvercetti

Gulliver wrote: »

Careful with the cordless tools, a lot of them don't come with a battery, which is €53.99. So add that to the price of the tool if you don't have a battery already.

I'm tempted to get the 20v Drill Driver with a battery for €33 and then use that battery on the Impact Driver for €34 although not sure how good the 1.3Ah battery will perform. The €54 battery is 2Ah so is better.

The 20V Hammer Drill with 2 Batteries for €70 looks a good deal but I only recently got a drill. Its the Impact driver I'd like.

p225886

If you're willing to take the risk you could buy the drill, keep one battery and sell the remaining drill and battery in done deal or adverts? More likely to be able to sell it with the battery....

tvercetti wrote: »

I'm tempted to get the 20v Drill Driver with a battery for €33 and then use that battery on the Impact Driver for €34 although not sure how good the 1.3Ah battery will perform. The €54 battery is 2Ah so is better.

The 20V Hammer Drill with 2 Batteries for €70 looks a good deal but I only recently got a drill. Its the Impact driver I'd like.

tvercetti

p225886 wrote: »

If you're willing to take the risk you could buy the drill, keep one battery and sell the remaining drill and battery in done deal or adverts? More likely to be able to sell it with the battery....

That's what I'm thinking. €67 total for an impact driver, drill driver and 1 battery and then try sell the Drill Driver(without battery) for €15/€20.

rameire

Im thinking a maximum of 5 selected stores available for checking.
and if you want to double that to 10 selected stores you have to put in the word of the week in a box,
the word of the week is provided here when updated.