1800PetMeds Scraper

Scrape 1800PetMeds's pet medication and supply catalog — search by keyword, browse by pet type and department, or by brand, with price, rating, and prescription filters. Uses 1800PetMeds' public storefront pages. No login, no cookies, no paid proxy required.

What this actor does

• Three modes: search, byCategory, byBrand
• 3 pet types: Dog, Cat, Horse
• 5 departments per pet type: Food, Health & Wellness, Pharmacy (Rx), Supplies, Treats
• 93 precise sub-categories: e.g. "Dog > Pharmacy (Rx) > Flea & Tick", "Cat > Food > Kitten Food"
• 30+ curated brands plus free-text override for any other brand
• Filters: price range, minimum customer rating, prescription-required only
• Sort order: relevance (default), name A-Z/Z-A, price low-to-high, rating high-to-low, newest — matches 1800PetMeds' own sort dropdown
• Empty fields are omitted

Output per product

• productId — 1800PetMeds product ID
• title
• brand
• manufacturer — underlying pharmaceutical/pet-food manufacturer, when distinct from brand
• category — specific therapy/product category (e.g. "Heartworm & Flea Prevention")
• petType — dog / cat / horse
• price, currency (USD)
• requiresPrescription — true if a veterinary prescription is required
• rating — 0-5 customer rating
• reviewCount
• imageUrl
• productUrl
• recordType: "product", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / byCategory / byBrand
searchQuery	string	flea and tick	Keyword matched against title + brand (mode=search)
petType	select	–	dog / cat / horse (mode=byCategory; also a filter in other modes)
categoryGroup	select	–	Department within petType (mode=byCategory)
subCategory	select	–	Exact leaf category — overrides petType+categoryGroup (mode=byCategory)
brand	select	–	Curated top brand (mode=byBrand; exact match)
brandQuery	string	–	Free-text brand substring — overrides brand when set
minPrice / maxPrice	number	–	Price range in USD
minRating	number	–	Minimum customer rating (0-5)
sortBy	select	relevance	relevance / title-asc / title-desc / price-asc / review-desc / newest
prescriptionOnly	boolean	false	Only emit prescription-required products
maxItems	int	20	Hard cap (1–1000)
proxyConfiguration	object	AUTO	Optional; only engaged automatically if the site rate-limits/blocks the request

Example: search

{ "mode": "search", "searchQuery": "heartworm", "maxItems": 20 }

Example: browse a precise sub-category with filters

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "subCategory": "dog:pharmacy:flea-and-tick",
  "maxPrice": 60,
  "minRating": 4,
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example: browse a pet type + department (no exact sub-category)

{ "mode": "byCategory", "petType": "cat", "categoryGroup": "food", "maxItems": 30 }

Example: browse a brand not in the curated dropdown

{ "mode": "byBrand", "brandQuery": "Greenies", "maxItems": 20 }

Use cases

• Prescription-medication monitoring — track pricing and availability of vet-prescribed flea/tick, heartworm, and chronic-condition medications
• Pet-food market research — compare pricing and assortment across pet-food brands and diet types (senior, puppy/kitten, veterinary diet)
• Price comparison — build a pricing feed for competitor benchmarking in the pet pharmacy space
• Product data enrichment — bulk-fetch structured product data (rating, review count, prescription flag) for a category
• Content/catalog audits — verify the breadth of prescription vs. over-the-counter offerings per pet type

FAQ

Does this require login or cookies? No. 1800PetMeds' public product catalog pages are fully accessible without authentication.

How is requiresPrescription determined? From the product's own category classification (rx vs otc) combined with the presence of the site's own "Rx" badge on the product tile — both signals agree in all sampled cases.

What's the difference between brand and manufacturer? brand is the consumer-facing product line (e.g. "Simparica TRIO"); manufacturer is the underlying pharmaceutical or pet-food company (e.g. "ZOETIS"). Both are included when they differ.

Can I search for a brand that isn't in the dropdown? Yes — use brandQuery for a free-text substring match.

What currency are prices in? US dollars (USD) — 1800PetMeds is a US retailer.

Why 93 sub-categories instead of a simpler taxonomy? 1800PetMeds' own navigation is genuinely this granular (e.g. "Heart & Blood Pressure" and "Seizure Disorder" are separate prescription categories for dogs). Exposing the full taxonomy as a dropdown avoids silent 0-result runs from guessed category slugs.

How fresh is the data? Real-time — every run queries 1800PetMeds' live storefront pages directly.

Can I fetch a single product by its URL or product ID? Not as a dedicated mode. search/byCategory/byBrand all scrape the grid/tile view (title, brand, price, rating, image, etc.) — a single-product deep-fetch mode would need a separate detail-page parser (full description, directions, ingredients/active-ingredient tables, warnings) not currently implemented. Considered out of scope for this version; the tile-level fields cover the common price/catalog-monitoring use cases.