There are two types of Black Friday shoppers. Those who research a product for months in advance, and know exactly what it costs, and those who decide to buy a good-looking special on a whim. Considering Takealot’s questionable history of price-fixing, it’s a good idea to check a product’s price history. And there’s an app for that.
Serval is a third-party web application developed out of classic consumer frustration. “Born out of the frustration of not knowing whether a product really is on special, Serval tries to give you some price history on the products,” the app’s about section details.
Serval’s here to save Black Friday
While not an official price tracker, Serval offers a detailed look at a product’s pricing history on the site. It’ll offer more clarity on some of those Black Friday, or ‘Blue Dot’ special offers that may look too good to be true.
In 2019, several Takealot users encountered questionable pricing and special offers on the platform, and the e-tailer answered most of the user queries, fairly genetically if we might add. It came down to shifting blame to its marketplace sellers, and the fact that the prices are set by the sellers.
“Serval does not track all the products on Takealot. Rather, it only tracks the top rated products, or products that people explicitly search for on Serval. Serval is designed to be as polite to the Takealot servers as possible, and employs a lot of internal rate limiting to prevent any perceivable load,” the Serval creator details.
Using Serval, however, should at least keep your wallet at ease when you decide to buy something on a whim. Go ahead and bookmark it, share it with your friends, and make it commonplace in all South African browsers.