Shopify Competitors · Catalog Changes by Store URL

Watch public Shopify shops and get one row per catalog move — new variants, price drops, price increases, sold out, back in stock. Not another full catalog dump you re-export every morning.

Paste a collection, a product, or a shop home. The Actor photographs the public storefront on the first run, then only writes what changed. Optionally ping Slack or Telegram when something moved.

No login. No Shopify Admin. No API key. No proxy.

Built for: DTC / brand ops · e-com agencies · merchandisers · marketplace sourcing · founders watching 1–2 rivals without a BI stack

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What does Shopify Catalog Watch do?

It opens the same public catalog shoppers see on a Shopify storefront (*.myshopify.com or a custom domain on Shopify), compares it to the last snapshot, and writes a dataset row when a variant appeared, disappeared, changed price, or flipped public availability.

This Actor	Not this Actor
Deltas vs last run	Full catalog dump every time
Public price and available	Warehouse qty, cost, metafields, Admin
Collection / product / home URLs	Pages, blogs, cart, Instagram (ignored)
Slack or Telegram when it moved	A chat flood on quiet days

Need the whole catalog as rows (not the diff)? Use Shopify Catalog · Products by Store URL.

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Why schedule this instead of re-scraping the shop?

Competitor dumps are expensive and noisy. You already know the assortment. You want what moved overnight: a new SKU, a 15% drop, a restock.

• First run = baseline (one billed snapshot per shop / collection). The Actor remembers the catalog.
• Later runs = change rows only. A quiet day is a cheap start, not 2,000 variant rows.
• Schedule daily in Apify Console. Same input every time. Snapshots live in a named key-value store (shopify-catalog-watch).
• Integrations: Dataset → Google Sheets / Make / n8n, or a Slack / Telegram ping from the run itself.

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Who is this for?

You are…	Typical goal	Suggested setup
Brand / DTC ops	Catch a competitor promo the same day	3–10 rival URLs, schedule daily, price 5%
E-com agency	Tell a client “what moved overnight”	One shop per client, Slack webhook, Changes view
Merchandiser	New SKUs on a reference store	Collection URL, default 0% price
Marketplace / sourcing	Back in stock on a target brand	Shop home, schedule twice a day
Founder doing it yourself	Watch 1–2 shops without a BI stack	Default input, first run = baseline

What you get by default: a baseline on the first run, then deltas. Public price and availability — not warehouse quantity or cost.

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What data can it extract?

Category	Fields
Change	changeType — baseline, added, removed, price_drop, price_up, out_of_stock, back_in_stock, promo_on, promo_off
Shop	hostname, shopUrl, watchKind, watchUrl
Product	title, productTitle, sku, handle, variantId, productUrl
Price	previousPrice, currentPrice, priceChangePercent, currency
List / sale	previousCompareAtPrice, currentCompareAtPrice (Shopify compare-at)
Stock signal	previousAvailable, currentAvailable (public available only)
When	scrapedAt

Two events on the same variant can produce two rows (e.g. drop + sold out). Filter changeType in the dataset.

Not extracted (and not invented): Admin inventory, cost, drafts, password-protected shops, non-Shopify sites.

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How to watch Shopify competitor catalogs

Three minutes to the first photograph:

1. Open the Actor Input tab.
2. Paste a public URL, e.g. https://enky.com/collections/workspace (collection), /products/…, or the shop home. Pages, blogs and Instagram are ignored.
3. Leave Alert on price moves from (%) at 0 (any price move) or set 5 for real discounts only.
4. Leave Send alerts to = Dataset only for the first run.
5. Click Start. Read the log: baseline saved.
6. Schedule the same input daily. Next runs write change rows. Download JSON / CSV / Excel from the Dataset tab — Changes view hides the baseline.

Slack — Incoming Webhook only

1. Slack → Apps → Incoming Webhooks → Add to a channel (e.g. #competitors).
2. Copy the URL that starts with https://hooks.slack.com/services/….
3. Set Send alerts to = Slack. Open the Slack section and paste that URL.

Telegram — bot token + chat ID

1. Open @BotFather → /newbot → copy the token (123456:ABC…).
2. Message your bot /start.
3. Get your numeric chat ID from @userinfobot (a group ID is often negative).
4. Set Send alerts to = Telegram. Open the Telegram section and paste token + chat ID.

The first run pings a short “watching — N products” so you know the channel works. Quiet days do not ping. A sale with hundreds of SKUs is summarized: counts by type, top 12 by % move, then “+N more in the dataset (all rows billed)”.

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Input

See the Input tab for the live form. Slack and Telegram sit in collapsed sections — open only the channel you picked. Apify cannot hide fields dynamically.

Dataset only (default)

{
  "startUrls": ["https://enky.com/collections/workspace"],
  "priceDropPercent": 0,
  "notifyVia": "none"
}

Slack when the catalog moved

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.jimmyfairly.com/"],
  "priceDropPercent": 5,
  "notifyVia": "slack",
  "slackWebhookUrl": "https://hooks.slack.com/services/T000/B000/XXX"
}

Telegram when the catalog moved

{
  "startUrls": ["https://enky.com/collections/workspace"],
  "priceDropPercent": 0,
  "notifyVia": "telegram",
  "telegramBotToken": "123456:ABC…",
  "telegramChatId": "123456789"
}

Parameter	Type	Default	Fill when
startUrls	string[]	—	Always. Public collection / product / home URLs
priceDropPercent	integer	0	Always. 0 = any price change; 5 = ±5% or more
notifyVia	string	none	Always. none · slack · telegram
slackWebhookUrl	string	—	Slack only (hooks.slack.com/services/…)
telegramBotToken	string	—	Telegram only (@BotFather)
telegramChatId	string	—	Telegram only (@userinfobot or group id)

Choosing Slack without a webhook (or Telegram without token + chat ID) stops the run with a clear error.

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Output example

Download from the Dataset tab in JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML. Changes = spreadsheet of moves. All fields includes baselines.

Price drop

{
  "changeType": "price_drop",
  "hostname": "www.jimmyfairly.com",
  "shopUrl": "https://www.jimmyfairly.com",
  "watchKind": "shop",
  "title": "Aviator · Black",
  "sku": "AV-BK",
  "previousPrice": 129,
  "currentPrice": 99,
  "previousCompareAtPrice": 129,
  "currentCompareAtPrice": 129,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "priceChangePercent": -23.26,
  "previousAvailable": true,
  "currentAvailable": true,
  "productUrl": "https://www.jimmyfairly.com/products/aviator",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-20T12:00:00.000Z"
}

First run (baseline) — one row per watch, then schedule:

{
  "changeType": "baseline",
  "hostname": "enky.com",
  "watchKind": "collection",
  "watchUrl": "https://enky.com/collections/workspace",
  "productCount": 8,
  "variantCount": 12
}

During the run, Key-Value Store → RUN_LOG is the plain-language progress log. OUTPUT is the count summary.

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How much does it cost to watch Shopify catalogs?

Pay-per-event on the Apify Store: you pay for the baseline photograph and then for each change row, not for the full catalog on every schedule.

Event	FREE tier	When
Actor start	~$0.00005	Every run (× GB RAM, min 1)
baseline-store	$0.01	First snapshot of one shop / collection
catalog-change (primary)	$0.004	One change vs last snapshot

Quick examples (event charges, FREE, rounded):

Scenario	Approx.
First run, 1 collection	Start + $0.01
Next day, 12 drops + 3 new SKUs	15 × $0.004 ≈ $0.06
Quiet day, 0 changes	Start only

A shop that is not Shopify, or that hides the public product feed, is skipped — not billed as catalog-change. Slack / Telegram pings are not extra PPE events.

Your Apify plan and compute (CU) may add separate platform charges — see Apify pricing and the run usage tab. Set a maximum cost per run in Console if you want a hard cap.

HTTP-only, 512 MB default. Typical one-collection run is seconds to a few minutes, not hours.

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Ready-made examples

Pre-configured Actor tasks. The Store Examples tab appears once the Actor is public (publish a task).

Example	Best for
Baseline one competitor shop	First photograph
Daily 5% drops on one shop	Promo watch
Two Shopify competitors	Small set
New SKUs only	Assortment, less price noise

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FAQ

Is this an official Shopify app?
No. It reads the public storefront a shopper can open. It does not use the Admin API.

Do I need a proxy?
No. Public Shopify JSON is not blocked by default. There is no proxy field in the form.

What URLs work?
/collections/{handle}, /products/{handle}, /collections/…/products/…, or the shop home. Locale prefixes like /en-us/ are stripped. /pages/, /blogs/, /cart, and social links are ignored.

Why is the first run empty of “changes”?
That is the baseline. Schedule the next run. Resetting the photograph is API-only (resetBaseline: true) after a huge seasonal swap.

Why fewer products than the website?
Drafts, hidden channels, or shops that disable /products.json (and collection JSON) cannot be listed. The run logs the skip.

Will Slack / Telegram spam me?
Only on baseline confirmation and when at least one change exists. No ping on a quiet schedule. A 400-SKU sale is one message: type counts + top 12 + “+388 more in the dataset (all rows billed)”.

Can I watch several shops in one run?
Yes. Paste several URLs. Each collection / product / home is its own snapshot.

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Is it legal?

Only public storefront data is extracted. You are responsible for the shop’s terms and your jurisdiction. This is not Shopify Admin data. Personal data is uncommon here (SKUs and prices); if a product title includes a person’s name, treat it under GDPR like any other public scrape. See Apify on the legality of web scraping.

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Local development

cd shopify-catalog-change-monitor
npm ci
npm test
apify run --purge --input-file=./input.json

storage/ is local-only. The named snapshot store is created next to the run storage so a second local run can diff.

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Support

Questions, custom watches (password shops, Admin, extra fields), or a private Slack format: corentin@outreacher.fr. Use the Issues tab on the Actor page for bugs.

Programmatic runs: API tab on the Actor (same JSON as Input).

Ready? Paste a collection URL, leave alerts on Dataset only, click Start, then schedule daily — add Slack or Telegram when the baseline looks right.