Automatic Cheapies Post for Specific Deals

NovaAlpha on 02/08/2026 - 22:14

Sometimes people post recurring deals, like the Auntie Dai Dumplings:

https://www.woolworths.co.nz/shop/productdetails?stockcode=7…

It got me thinking: why don't we have an automatic deal tracker for products like these?

The idea would be to monitor prices and, as soon as a product hits a deal threshold, automatically generate a Cheapies post. That way, recurring deals don't rely on someone noticing them and taking the time to post manually.

I already have something similar for personal use—it monitors prices across various websites, tracks price history, and sends me alerts when a deal is detected. The limitation is that those notifications only reach me. Automating Cheapies posts would make these deals visible to everyone as soon as they happen, rather than waiting for someone to discover and share them. I'm not keen to modify my tool to post automatically on Cheapies (unless there's an API for this), but it's an idea for the Cheapies admin to think about.

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  • kfr23 on 03/08/2026 - 18:26

    It would just be spam with how often those sorts of things go on sale. Most people aren't just going to make a special trip for a certain item either, and the bigger sales get posted in advance anyway.

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    • NovaAlpha on 03/08/2026 - 19:24

      Why would it be considered "spam" if it's automated, but not spam if someone posts the exact same deal manually? In general, if something can be automated, it probably should be. And who said anything about people making special trips for specific items? That's irrelevant. It's got nothing to do with whether the deal was posted by a person or by an automated system.

      I also think you're putting too much faith in people consistently posting deals. I've seen plenty of deals on Cheapies that were only posted a few hours before they expired, meaning that they were shared too late.

      I subscribe to the Cheapies newsletter and have my own Discord server monitoring Cheapies, so I usually see new deals fairly quickly. Even then, I still miss out on certain deals sometimes. If I'm busy for a few hours, it's easy to miss a short-lived deal. However, if deals were posted as soon as they became available, the window for people to discover and take advantage of them would be much larger.

      There are also examples where free games on GOG, Steam, or Epic Games are never posted on Cheapies at all.

      Take the Auntie Dai Dumplings deal as an example. I'm only interested in the Woolworths North Island offers, and these are the dates they've been posted over the past year:

      • 24/07/26
      • 03/06/26
      • 08/02/26
      • 05/01/26
      • 21/09/25
      • 13/07/25
      • 01/06/25

      As you can see, there are gaps of several months between discounts. These deals aren't nearly as frequent or as regular as they might appear, which makes timely notifications even more valuable.

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