E-commerce Assortment Change Monitor

Convert recurring catalog snapshots into stable, event-level assortment intelligence. Use products pasted directly or read any compatible Apify dataset—such as the output of Product Data Extractor, a marketplace scraper, or an internal feed Actor.

Event taxonomy

• PRODUCT_ADDED / PRODUCT_REMOVED
• PRICE_INCREASED / PRICE_DECREASED
• OUT_OF_STOCK / BACK_IN_STOCK
• DISCOUNT_STARTED / DISCOUNT_ENDED
• VARIANT_ADDED / VARIANT_REMOVED

The first complete run creates a persistent baseline for monitorKey. Reusing the same key on a schedule compares the new catalog with that baseline, emits events, and saves the new state. If the run's maximum charge cannot cover the whole catalog, nothing is charged and the last complete baseline is kept. If the catalog shrinks by more than half (from 20+ products), the run is treated as a likely partial or blocked scan: nothing is charged, no removals are reported and the baseline is kept; use resetBaseline if the drop is real. Records without an identity, and duplicate keys, are skipped with a warning. A catalog larger than maxProducts fails instead of being silently truncated.

Quick start

{
  "monitorKey": "demo-store-us",
  "products": [
    { "sku": "SKU-100", "name": "Trail Shoe", "price": 89.99, "listPrice": 109.99, "inStock": true, "variants": ["black-42"] }
  ]
}

On the next run, change the price, stock, variants, or product set while keeping the same monitorKey.

Pricing

The intended pricing is pay per product compared, with platform usage included. Change events, baseline rows, and the run summary are included. Current exact prices appear on the Store page. A full, unmodified baseline is preserved when the run's maximum charge is too low.

Limitations

This Actor compares structured product records; it does not scrape storefronts itself. Product identity is only as stable as the supplied monitorKey, ID, SKU, GTIN, URL, or name. Renamed products without a stable ID can look removed and re-added. Currency conversion is not performed. Availability and variant shapes vary by upstream Actor and should be checked during the first run.

No private/authenticated scraping, CAPTCHA bypass, personal-data profiling, outreach, or credentials are used.

FAQ

Where do the product snapshots come from? Paste products directly or point it at any Apify dataset with product rows, such as the output of E-commerce Product Scraper or Shopify Price Monitor. The baseline is kept between runs.

What changes does it detect? Added and removed products, price increases and decreases, stock-outs and restocks, discounts starting and ending, and variant changes — each as one event row with before and after values.

How much does it cost? $0.50 per 1,000 products compared plus $0.01 per run. The Pricing tab is authoritative.

Can I run it through the API or on a schedule? Yes. Save your input as a task, schedule it in Apify Console, or call it from the Apify API. Results export as JSON, CSV or Excel and connect to Google Sheets, Slack, Make, Zapier or a webhook.

Related Actors

• E-commerce Product Scraper
• Shopify Price Monitor
• XML Sitemap Scraper