ow we are already 7 months into 2012 and what better way to kick off July than with an exciting announcment. Last month I added the Amazon section to the website and while it looked pretty it wasn’t great at doing what I originally planned, it was slow loading the products and everything had to be manually added so it was very labour intensive.
Since then I have been looking at ways to improve this aspect of the site and to make it more useful for users of Brick Fanatics. I then came across a site I had known about a while called Brick Badger and it offered everything I wanted it to and more. I got in touch with the owner Ash to ask for advice on what to do and after chatting we both clicked and instead of him helping me fix my issues we agreed on a partnership that would benefit the users of both sites.
So now the Amazon section is gone and Brick Badger has become part of Brick Fanatics and soon will have the same look as the main site. Once all the behind the scenes work is finished Brick Fanatics will have a few cool new features to let readers know of all the latest deals found on Brick Badger. Myself and Ash have a few ideas that you should be see being rolled out over the coming weeks and months.
For those who have not used it before Brick Badger checks the prices of over a thousand Lego Products on six different regional Amazon sites regularly throughout the day. Prices are then updated in the database and displayed in a variety of ways on the Brick Badger site. Each region also has it’s own Twitter account that you can sign up for to receive updates of big price drops so you don’t miss out. While the main Brick Badger home page lists both new discounts and the best current discounts it has a lot more pages and reports that allow you to do anything from browse by theme to check which sets currently offer the best price per piece ratio.
While anyone can use it Brick Badger also has some tools written especially for AFOLs including an AFOL specific theme that groups a lot of popular AFOL sets together and a comparison mode that allows you to compare prices across multiple regions at once.
So if you are looking for the best deals from Amazon with the most up to date prices then please visit Brick Badger today. As well as maintaining and improving Brick Badger Ash is also going to become part of the Brick Fanatics team and a contributor for the site. He claims to be a big fan of Space and Adventure themes although when asked said his favourite Lego was “anything that’s 50% off”. Here is what Ash had to say on the coming together:
“When I started Brick Badger in February it was an experiment and mostly a tool for myself and a few friends. Since then I’ve been constantly refining ir and I’m very proud of what it’s become. Over the last few months it’s been rapidly growing in popularity and I’ve been keen to make it available to a wider audience. I see becoming part of Brick Fanatics as a way of reaching this audience and am really excited about some of the ideas Rich and I have for further integrating the two sites. I’m particularly happy with the fact that it’s Brick Fanatics I’m becoming part of as it was already by go-to site for general Lego news. As an occasional Lego blogger I’m also looking forward to trying my hard at contributing to a more established site. That said, my primary role will still be based around maintaining and improving Brick Badger and I always welcome any feedback and suggestins from the people who use it.”
You can see on the main site the new links to Brick Badger and expect to see the other features rolled out soon, I will also announce the winner of June’s polybag competition later today. Please let us know what you think of the news in the comments below
