
Show HN: 1dollarthings.com – an internet dollar store - leeseibert
http://www.1dollarthings.com
======
petecooper
I can't check your site because it's throwing an application error, but Ali
Express has many sub-1USD things, even with postage, and also has an affiliate
scheme.

A propos nothing, the cheapest thing I've found, ordered, had delivered and
found useful was a Raspberry Pi camera mount for 0.19GBP (~0.27USD) shipped.
Astonishing and a bit shameful.

[http://www.aliexpress.com](http://www.aliexpress.com)

~~~
Ecco
I've written a blog post on that very subject. Turns out you can have a $0.03
item mailed to you, including shipping, from China!

[http://romain.goyet.com/articles/free_shipping_from_china/](http://romain.goyet.com/articles/free_shipping_from_china/)

~~~
Scoundreller
But you do have a have a lot of patience. It seems to be getting a lot slower.
I just hit a new record: An item shipped on November 25th arrived last week to
Canada.

~~~
vanattab
I had package of green tea I ordered show up 7 months after I ordered it.

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sarciszewski
"Application Error"

Okay, maybe your web hosting shouldn't have been a 1 dollar thing too?

(I'm kidding. I'll bookmark this and come back later when the traffic dies
down. Seems like a neat idea!)

~~~
harel
I'll buy that for a dollar

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callmeed
Site is down but based on the domain and your description, I like where your
head is at.

Limiting it to $1 items might be too low IMO. One place I enjoy browsing is
this subreddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonunder5](https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonunder5)

~~~
brookside
Pretty cool thing to exist, but I'm going stay away in effort to keep my life
clutter free and junk drawer somewhat empty.

~~~
callmeed
It's _junk drawers_ (plural) in our home

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leeseibert
I created this app out of frustration with how hard it is to find low priced
items online. You usually have to drill way down before you can filter by
price. Do you think this is a useful service?

~~~
jamessun
I worked on a similar side project a little while ago that focused on items
that were below ten dollars. Like 1 Dollar Things, I used your typical
affiliate data feeds. It was an interesting development exercise, but I failed
to get any steady traffic/interest in the site.

I think the idea has some merit, but my execution wasn't good enough. Good
luck with 1 Dollar Things!

~~~
leeseibert
What do you mean by "affiliate data feeds"? I am using live API calls. Is that
what you mean?

~~~
jamessun
I consumed product data feeds from companies that ran affiliate programs
through companies like Commission Junction, filtered/stored the product data
offline, indexed it, and displayed it in any number of ways through the web.

In retrospect, I should have spent more time marketing the site and getting
feedback from users instead of focusing on the technical infrastructure :-)

~~~
TranquilMarmot
Yeah, but where's the fun in that!

~~~
djhn
The fun in that is gone, it has trickled into your wallet.

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joshstrange
I'm getting an "Application Error" when I try to visit.

~~~
leeseibert
Uh Oh. Looks like I have some work to do. It's up again.

~~~
amorphid
It's down again :)

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overcast
I think the idea has some merit, and the domain is pretty solid. Though you'll
want to eventually snag "onedollarthings.com" as well. The pinterest style
tile layout is pretty exhausting at this point though. I think you'd fair
better with a tidy listing, and filtering. The ability to have a "watch list"
for types of items would be very handy as well.

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vortico
Why did you choose a Pinterest-style list rather than a sequences of rectangle
boxes and pagination? Sometimes the Javascript breaks when scrolling down (I
assume because the server returns a 500 on the response). A refresh would fix
it, but since it doesn't know what "page" I'm on, I'm brought back to the top.
It's also really slow on my mobile device and old-ish computer, while it's
just a handful of images and text.

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0942v8653
It looks like you have some things counting as less than one dollar when they
are really $undefined -- specifically, video streaming shows from Walmart.
Here is the HTML of one of them:

    
    
        <div class="item"><a href="http://c.affil.walmart.com/t/api02?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.walmart.com%2Fip%2F23794924%3Faffp1%3D_29G0tM6Kd9jCNF-ZaPzGqT3dPWZDueGbMk7hOeZY0E%26affilsrc%3Dapi%26veh%3Daff%26wmlspartner%3Dreadonlyapi" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://c.affil.walmart.com/t/api02?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.walmart.com%2Fip%2F23794924%3Faffp1%3D_29G0tM6Kd9jCNF-ZaPzGqT3dPWZDueGbMk7hOeZY0E%26affilsrc%3Dapi%26veh%3Daff%26wmlspartner%3Dreadonlyapi" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/01/13/02/46/71/0113024671371_100X100.jpg"><h3>Doctor Who: Season 7, Part 2 (2013)</h3></a><div>Price: $undefined</div><img src="walmart.png" style="float: right; width: 30%; height: 30%;"></div>

~~~
leeseibert
Nice catch! Thanks

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foxrider
nice, but you need a server for more than one dollar for this website

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vanattab
I have been thinking of building an online marketplace called
"unplaningobsolescence.com" that would only sell products with 10yr+
warranties but I haven't had the time.

P.S. yes I know that would be a terrible url for a online store but I like it.

~~~
midgetjones
Did you mean "unplaning"?

~~~
vanattab
Or perhaps unplanning. I wanted it to be a play the phrase "planned
obsolescence" but its like I said in my post its not a good url. Combining a
word that doesn't exist with a word that is difficult to spell probably breaks
a lot of the guidance given for good urls. I am open to suggestion.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Brainstorm: golong, plannedlongevity, lifeplus, longestlife, lastslong, vital,
tenplus, 10tolife, keepers, ...

~~~
vanattab
I like plannedlongevity

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PhoenixWright
Awesome site. Ever since I saw fivestar.io I've been wanting to do an Amazon
affiliate site. He gave an update a couple of months after launch and said he
was making a nice ~$300/month.

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leeseibert
For those outside the US would something like this work in your country? Do
you have the equivalent of a dollar store there?

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fareesh
Heroku error on the page - I suppose paying for expensive hosting like Heroku
is a bit difficult when everything being sold is $1 :D

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profinger
One issue that I have here, and I can't view it because the site is down, is
that shipping will probably make any of these things not worth buying. Most $1
things aren't worth shipping. Unless you filter for only free shipping?

~~~
leeseibert
Yeah I have thought about that. With Amazon Prime users don't think about
shipping and with Walmart you can ship to store. But I hear what you're
saying.

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cphoover
down again

