Telunjuk: Price Comparing Website

Looks like price comparing websites are trending right now. After Tiket2 for comparing flight ticket prices, now we have Telunjuk which isn’t only comparing flight ticket prices but also notebook and cell phone’s prices and features. Generally, they have simple UI. Nothing fancy, but precisely hit the target.

On their terms page, Telunjuk explicitly called itself a search engine and not responsible for accuracy, integrity, match, change, and schedule appear on the search result page. ‘Telunjuk’ was used because the developer wishes to make users’ shopping experience as easy as using their fingers. Telunjuk (forefinger) is the most used finger to type on keyboard and clicking mouse.

For notebook data, they aggregate data from a number of sources, including the Bhinneka, IndoWebStore, and well-known Jakarta Notebook. For cell phones, there are various brands available like Apple, Samsung, or Nokia, up to local brands such as Nexian, IMO, K-Touch, or Tiphone. While for airlines price comparison, they take their data from Garuda Indonesia, Sriwijaya Air, Batavia Air, and Lion Air.

Generally, their aggregation on data taking is quite fast. For flights, there seems to be an issue with data from Garuda Indonesia because it never appears on the search result. They say the flight route is only available for domestic flights, but when I typed CGK-SIN route, data from three airlines was quickly available. The time it takes to show search result is quicker than I thought it would be. Even so, this website doesn’t provide links for online booking and direct us to the airlines main page instead. This is different than Tiket2, being licensed as travel agent. From the beginning Tiket2 and Telunjuk’ positioning isn’t apple-to-apple so it can’t be directly compared.

For notebook and cell phone, other than search result, there is also list menu to check items based on their brands. After searching for specific mode/type, visitors will be able to see its complete specifics and where they can buy it. From here, “Buy” button will direct users straight to the item’s page. On some products, there is price movement although it looks like the graphics displayed is not really accurate.

What becomes the issue here is data status they are showing. Although it can be accessible without any charge, data feed like this ethically speaking needs permission from its owner. Trouble may arise if the owner explicitly forbids anyone to take their data.

Zen from Telunjuk said the robot technology that does the data crawling already does it best to follow “the rule” or technology ethics so that it won’t harm data owners. Besides, he believes that Google actually does the same thing but there’s no explicit complaint. When asked about possibility to add more categories, the answered diplomatically, “Telunjuk basic algorithm is to determine ‘something’ is ‘something’ and when something needs to be determined than we might go that way ASAP“. Interesting opinion.

If they can enhance Telunjuk’s UI looks, and in the future they want to provide comparison in other category, this website will make a good place to go to before purchasing things.

Translated by Nita Sellya