Zinc Save

Web and SaaS

shopping savings

SHOW HN2014

43points
44comments
#742of 2,272 in 2014
Top 33%of 2014 by points

How HN took it

CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments

3 positive, 20 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 2 critical, out of 26 comments about the project. Thread score +0.04.

Execution: 1 for, 1 againstIdea: 1 for, 1 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Fast delivery and a good customer experience reported by a user.

    From 1 comment
    • I use Amazon. I found Zinc here yesterday. I rolled the dice, ordered ~$100. My CC gives 5% cashback on amazon, 1% normally. The Zinc advantage over the 4% difference was slim,…
      arh68 on HN
  • Saved money on book orders.

    From 1 comment
    • This saved me 10% on a few books I just bought, so it clearly seems to work. I'd definitely like to know how though.
      SatvikBeri on HN

Objections

  • Unclear whether the service is legal or might draw action from Amazon.

    From 3 comments
    • I... can't see how this is legal. If I were Amazon and I heard about this, you'd have a cease and desist order at your doorstep the next day... If this is legal, though, please…
      ultimatedelman on HN
    • Actually, it is doing something illegal. It's injecting a button on Amazon.com's webpage (without their consent) trying to swoop your business from them by offering a slightly…
      ultimatedelman on HN
    • Heavy Amazon user here (for 99% of my non-fresh food purchases, I order it on Amazon). This looks neat at first glance, because I order things on Amazon all the time, and I like…
      GuiA on HN
  • Orders may not appear in Amazon order history.

    From 2 comments
    • Heavy Amazon user here (for 99% of my non-fresh food purchases, I order it on Amazon). This looks neat at first glance, because I order things on Amazon all the time, and I like…
      GuiA on HN
    • Do the orders show up in your amazon history? If not, is there some way to access them? Their website is a bit sparse on details. I'm guessing they have some way to provide…
      xur17 on HN
  • Browser extension injects content into Amazon pages without consent.

    From 2 comments
    • Actually, it is doing something illegal. It's injecting a button on Amazon.com's webpage (without their consent) trying to swoop your business from them by offering a slightly…
      ultimatedelman on HN
    • Ok, let's modify my example from "some guy" to "some guy you know" and imagine that a lot of people know this guy, and he's always standing outside that store. The store would…
      ultimatedelman on HN
  • Extension requests access to all websites.

    From 1 comment
    • As you only offer discounts on Amazon and Walmart can your chrome extension please just request data from those domains and not ‘all websites’? I'm very conscious of extension…
      jordn on HN
  • Does not work for some users on Amazon or Walmart.

    From 1 comment

Requests

  • Support Firefox.

    From 1 comment
    • You could increase your potential user base by 50% by adding firefox support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers seems to indicate firefox has about half…
      hayksaakian on HN
  • Support one-click purchasing.

    From 1 comment
    • Thanks for the feedback! We're hoping to make the extension work for one-click users soon. Establishing trust is a big challenge for us. The best we know to do is provide an…
      FriedPickles on HN

Questions

  • How are returns, tracking and customer service handled?

    From 2 comments
    • Wait, so what kinds of savings are actually available on Amazon in the first place? I mean, I order tons of stuff. How exactly is Zinc saving me money? The books I order don't…
      crazygringo on HN
    • What if I need to make a return on an item? How does that work?
      rdudek on HN
  • Does Zinc use Amazon Associates affiliate revenue?

    From 1 comment
    • Does Zinc simply kickback some affiliate revenue earned?
      fatbat on HN
  • How does international shipping pricing work?

    From 1 comment
    • Interesting idea, how does this work for international orders? Do I get the product price discounted, and then pay whatever Amazon lists for shipping? This isn't immediately…
      joshschreuder on HN
  • How do they guarantee Prime-speed shipping?

    From 1 comment
    • I understand the analogy here. But how will it gurantee shipping at a speed equal to a prime member. Do they have a pool of free prime accounts that they will use to order your…
      hatred on HN

Alternatives named

  • Honey

    From 2 comments
    • There's a Chrome extension called Honey (I believe one of the devs posts here occasionally) which does this (well, you click a button and it tries a bunch of codes for you, it…
      joshschreuder on HN
    • so you're like a combination of honey + intercepting and storing my order information on your servers to wrap around canceling and returning?
      kookiekrak on HN
  • Quidco

    From 2 comments
    • Well if you are in UK you can use Quidco and their extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quidco-cashback-reminder/elfdpdgmnodokhbiabbcjabmhpdajcog Which tells you…
      agilebyte on HN
    • This possibly refunds buyers part of the Amazon affiliate fees they get for intercepting the order. I don't think Amazon will appreciate that... There are other "cashback" type…
      lazyjones on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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