u/ForTheConsumers

Trying to see if something like this exists anywhere online.

I am happy to see that in the savings guide one of the key takeaways is "Compare by unit price, not sticker price." This is fantastic advice. But while this metric is required by many state laws. It does not specify that all units of like products need to match. So because companies hate a well informed customer, they do crap like have 5 cherry tomatoes right next to each other and they are listed in, Price per 100ct, price per pound, price per ounce, and price per 12ct. and one was listed as price per ml! It's not even a liquid item!? But they do that crap anyways.
So having a tool that auto converts unit prices to shared units would be great. and if I could compare multiple retailers all at once, even better.

I use my calculator a lot, I also for years used bowser extensions and sites like bangyourbuck. But I always wanted more features and more coverage. So I wanted to build a site to satisfy all these needs.

I won enough money in a development competition that I could work on a tool that was not about making money, but instead, helping people. I know every freaking corner of the internet is monetized to high hell. But I prefer the internet of the 90s and 2000s where people just built cool sh*t. The site I built is ad free, no account creation, no mailing list, no premium version, nothing. The only way I can make any money from this are affiliate links for the amazon items. I only did that because it has a zero cost to you, and when affiliate links are not used, that is just an extra 1-5% in Bezos's pocket. So they fit within my mission. (One other way is if someone donates, but basically no-one ever donates to free projects lol)

Sorry for the long preamble. I hate marketing, and even though this is a totally free and hopefully useful tool. I feel like a slimy salesman making posts like this.

I built a site that allows users to find the best value by sorting items by cost per weight/volume/unit (And auto converting units to user prefered units), while getting results from many retailers all in one page. You can also run multiple searches at once, and have all the results shown together.
Let's say you want to buy some stuff for an upcoming hiking trip. Instead of doing a bunch of different searches you could search for dried fruit, trail mix, freeze dried snacks, and dehydrated meat. and search from Amazon, walmart, Target, and Kroger, and see all of those all in one list!
Here is a URL that should run that search (But defaults do not search all retailers cause it takes a long time, you can pick which retailers you'd like to include) https://fortheconsumers.com/search?view=grid&items=100&q=dehydrated%20meat&q=freeze%20dried%20snacks&q=trail%20mix&q=dried%20fruit

Or you can just go to the homepage, and take a look around https://fortheconsumers.com

I am also working on 2 new metrics, Price Per Consumption Unit/ Price Per Serving. And Price Per Nutrition. Both are aimed at showing even more granular information about products. All in the hope of empowering consumers.

PPCU lets you see real world consumption units, dollar per Sheets of toilet paper per poop, Ground coffee, instant coffee, and pods per cup of joe. https://fortheconsumers.com/ppcu

Price per nutrition lets you do things like most Protein per $, Protein per kcal, Fiber per fat, etc. https://fortheconsumers.com/nutrition

There are info buttons on each page, and then an About page for more granular info here, https://fortheconsumers.com/about

TLDR: I made a website whose sole goal is to illuminate useful information that big corporations try to hide or muddy up, empowering the consumer, and hopefully saving you buck monies, when you are shopping for everyday household items (Or anything where Unit Price is helpful)

I was wondering if a website I built would be useful for this community. And if not how I could update it to be useful.

The site lets you cross compare multiple retailers and sort by Price Per Unit/Unit Price. So it could help find items to stock your machines, but I am not sure, if the retailers I have Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Kroger stores, would beat out the suppliers you all use. If that is the case, if you tell me which retailers you use I will try to add them. I have been wanting to add sites like Costco, but it has been difficult since it is a javascript heave site.

I did read rule #1 and I don't think me posting my website violates it, since it is there are zero ads, no account sign ups, no sponsored content, no premium version. Beside affiliate links on only the Amazon results, there is no monetization of any kind pushed on people using the site. I did not make this to make money, I doubt the affiliate links will even cover the cost of development and maintenance. I made this website because I personally have wanted this tool for years. Also I have been so fed up with corporate greed for decades, all the manipulation, and deceptive practices they use. I wanted to make something that could help people take back a little bit of power from them. So I don't know if this would be considered a post that is not wanted here.

But if it is something wanted here, then that's noice!

https://fortheconsumers.com

Please let me know how or if I could make this a useful tool for yall. I know some people use suppliers that ship everything to them, so I couldn't help with that.
When I searched "wholesale candy" on the site I found Now & Laters for $4.15 a pound, and a variety pack of random candies at $3.86 a lb . How does that compare?
https://www.fortheconsumers.com/search?search=wholesale%20candy&view=grid&items=100

So for the last several months I set to work building a site to help, even if its a tiny amount of help, it's better than doing nothing.

And now that I released it I am just trying to tell as many people as I can. The more people that use it the better the data set becomes, the more helpful it is for everyone.

I don't want this to be seen as just an advertising post. There are zero ads, no account sign ups, no sponsored content, no premium version. Beside affiliate links on only the Amazon results, there is no monetization of any kind pushed on people using the site. I did not make this to make money, I doubt the affiliate links will even cover the cost of development and maintenance. I made this website because I have been so fed up with corporate greed for decades, all the manipulation, and deceptive practices they use. I wanted to make something that could help people take back a little bit of power from them. So I don't know if this would be considered a post that is not wanted here.

But if it is something wanted here, then that's noice!
https://fortheconsumers.com

I do think supporting these companies is not great. The best thing to right the ship would be to not use this site, and support local small businesses. But I understand that there are valid reasons people have when shopping at the mega corps. And so this site is designed for people that are already shopping at these places. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good -Voltaire (translated)

So yeah, I hope that this can help some people. I am actively in development, today is basically the first time I am telling the interwebs about this. So please let me know if you find any issues, or if you have ideas on how to make it better.

(I was in-between "Price Changes" and "News" for the flair, its a new release, but that felt a bit meh. There is a price change monitor system built into the website, so that feels correct, lmk if I am wrong here)

Thanks,
Toto

This is a new site that I have been working on since last year.

I don't want this to be seen as just an advertising post, so I am not gonna post the link, unless mods say it's okay. There are zero ads, no account sign ups, no sponsored content, no premium version. Beside affiliate links on only the Amazon results, there is no monetization of any kind pushed on people using the site. I made this website because I have been so fed up with corporate greed for decades, all the manipulation, and deceptive practices they use. I wanted to make something that could help people take back a little bit of power from them. So I don't know if this would be considered a post that is not wanted here.

I don't know how to tell people about this without paying for advertising. This project will in no way ever cover the costs to develop and maintain it. So paying for ads is just a bad idea for me. I would rather put that money into maintaining and further developing it. Any advise on this front would be great!

There is an About page with more information but in short the site is all about allowing people to cross compare items from multiple retailers, and sort by Price Per Unit, or Unit Price. I find this metric one of the simplest and quickest ways to understand the true cost to you of goods. It is not the end all be all metric, I am working on other metrics, like Price Per Consumption Unit/Price Per Serving, and the newer Price Per Nutrition system I mentioned above.

-Toto