Kidstuff AU Product Scraper

The Kidstuff AU Product Scraper is a comprehensive Apify actor designed to extract detailed product data from Kidstuff Australia (kidstuff.com.au), a leading Australian toy and children's products retailer. This actor enables you to perform product searches, browse categories, retrieve specific product details, and list all available collections.

Perfect for price monitoring, market research, product catalog management, inventory tracking, and competitive analysis.

🚀 Features

Multi-Operation Support

• Product Search: Search for products using keywords across the entire catalog
• Category Scraping: Extract all products from specific collections/categories with pagination
• Product Details: Get comprehensive information for a specific product, including all variants
• Category List: Retrieve a complete list of all available categories/collections

Rich Data Extraction

• Product Identification: ID, slug, SKU, barcode
• Product Information: Name, brand, category, description, size
• Pricing: Original price, discount price, current price, price history
• Availability: Stock status, in/out of stock indicators
• Media: All product images with full URLs
• Source Tracking: Direct product/variant URLs

Advanced Proxy Strategy

1. Direct Connection: Fastest method for initial requests
2. Apify Proxy: Automatic fallback to residential/datacenter proxies on blocks
3. Browser Impersonation: Uses curl-cffi with Chrome 124 impersonation for anti-bot evasion

🛠️ How to Use

Operation 1: Search Products

Search the entire product catalog using keywords.

Input:

{
  "operation": "search",
  "search_query": "wooden toys",
  "page": 1,
  "page_size": 24,
  "proxy_configuration": "auto"
}

Parameters:

• operation: "search" (required)
• search_query: Keyword to search for (required)
• page: Page number (default: 1)
• page_size: Items per page (default: 24)
• proxy_configuration: "auto", "apify", "direct", or "custom" (default: "auto")

Operation 2: Category Scraping

Extract all products from a specific collection/category.

Input:

{
  "operation": "category",
  "category_slug": "toys-for-preschoolers",
  "page": 1,
  "page_size": 24,
  "proxy_configuration": "auto"
}

Parameters:

• operation: "category" (required)
• category_slug: Collection slug from the categories endpoint (required)
• page: Page number (default: 1)
• page_size: Items per page (default: 24)
• proxy_configuration: Proxy strategy (default: "auto")

Tip: Use the categories operation first to get all available slugs.

Operation 3: Product Details

Get detailed information for a specific product, including all variants.

Input (by slug):

{
  "operation": "item",
  "slug": "wooden-toy-set",
  "proxy_configuration": "auto"
}

Input (by URL):

{
  "operation": "item",
  "url": "https://www.kidstuff.com.au/products/wooden-toy-set",
  "proxy_configuration": "auto"
}

Input (by variant ID):

{
  "operation": "item",
  "slug": "wooden-toy-set",
  "variant_id": "123456789",
  "proxy_configuration": "auto"
}

Parameters:

• operation: "item" (required)
• slug: Product handle (optional if URL provided)
• url: Full product URL (optional if slug provided)
• variant_id: Specific variant ID (optional)
• proxy_configuration: Proxy strategy (default: "auto")

Note: At least one of slug, url, or variant_id must be provided.

Operation 4: List All Categories

Retrieve a complete list of all available categories/collections.

Input:

{
  "operation": "categories",
  "proxy_configuration": "auto"
}

Parameters:

• operation: "categories" (required)
• proxy_configuration: Proxy strategy (default: "auto")

Output: Returns a list of categories with slugs that can be used in the category operation.

📊 Output Schema

Each product/variant item contains:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Unique identifier for the product/variant
slug	string	Product handle/slug
name	string	Product name (including variant details)
brand	string	Vendor/Brand name
sku	string	Stock Keeping Unit
barcode	string	Product barcode
source_url	string	Direct link to the product or variant
category	string	Product type or category name
description	string	Cleaned product description
size	string	Extracted size/pack information
availability	string	"in_stock" or "out_of_stock"
in_stock	boolean	Whether the product is currently in stock
price	number	Original price
discount_price	number	Sale price
current_price	number	The price currently active
images	array	List of product image URLs
source	string	Source identifier ("kidstuff")
price_info	array	Price history information

🔧 Proxy Configuration

The actor supports multiple proxy strategies:

• auto (recommended): Starts with direct connection, falls back to Apify proxies on blocks, uses browser impersonation for hard blocks
• apify: Always uses Apify residential/datacenter proxies
• direct: No proxy (fastest but highest risk of blocks)
• custom: Use your own proxy URL

⚠️ Important Notes

Performance Considerations

• Scraping speed depends on the site's response time and proxy quality
• Large categories may take longer to process
• Pagination is supported for search and category operations

Rate Limiting

• The actor includes built-in free limit checks
• Consider rate limits when scraping large volumes
• Use appropriate delays between requests for large-scale operations

Data Quality

• Prices are normalized to AUD
• Images are deduplicated and returned as full URLs
• HTML is cleaned from descriptions
• Variant information is intelligently merged into product names

📄 Legal Disclaimer

This scraper is an unofficial tool and is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Kidstuff AU. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with Kidstuff's Terms of Service and applicable laws. Respect robots.txt and rate limits.

💡 Use Cases

• Price Monitoring: Track price changes across product categories
• Market Research: Analyze product availability and pricing trends
• Inventory Management: Monitor stock levels for specific products
• Competitive Analysis: Compare product assortments and pricing
• Catalog Building: Extract complete product catalogs for analysis
• Product Discovery: Find products matching specific criteria

🆘 Troubleshooting

No results returned:

• Verify the search query or category slug is correct
• Check if the product/URL exists
• Try different proxy configuration

Blocked or timeout errors:

• Use "apify" or "auto" proxy configuration
• Check if the site is experiencing issues
• Reduce page_size for faster responses

Missing fields:

• Some products may not have all fields (e.g., barcode, size)
• This is normal - fields are only included when available