Scrape Alibaba Suppliers (and Detail)

This Apify Actor is designed to scrape supplier information from Alibaba, including detailed profile data when enabled. It uses Python and BeautifulSoup to extract supplier details based on keywords or a custom search URL.

How to Use

1. Input Configuration

The Actor accepts the following input parameters in JSON format:

• size (required):
  The number of suppliers to scrape.

  • Type: Integer
  • Default: 10
  • Minimum: 1

• keyword (optional):
  The search keyword to find suppliers.

  • Type: String
  • Default: "candle"

• searchUrl (optional):
  A custom search URL to scrape suppliers. This can include additional parameters like country or capabilities. If both keyword and searchUrl are provided, only the keyword will be used.

  • Type: String

• scrape_detail (optional):
  Whether to fetch detailed profile information (e.g., certificates).

  • Type: Boolean
  • Default: false

2. Example Input

{
  "size": 10,
  "keyword": "solar panel",
  "scrape_detail": true
}

3. Output

The Actor returns a JSON array containing supplier details. Each object in the array includes the following fields:

• area: The supplier's location.
• companyId: The unique ID of the supplier's company.
• companyName: The name of the supplier's company.
• url: The URL of the supplier's profile.
• companyIcon: The URL of the supplier's company icon.
• companyImage: A list of images associated with the supplier's company.
• goldYears: The number of years the supplier has been a Gold Supplier.
• mainProduct: Details about the supplier's main product.
• productList: A list of products offered by the supplier.
• provideProducts: A description of the products provided by the supplier.
• replyAvgTime: The average response time of the supplier.
• reviewCount: The number of reviews for the supplier.
• reviewScore: The supplier's review score.
• staff: Information about the supplier's staff.
• capabilities: Tags describing the supplier's capabilities.
• transactions: The number of transactions completed by the supplier.
• vrUrl: The URL for the supplier's VR showroom.
• isAssessedSupplier: Whether the supplier is assessed.
• newAd: Additional advertisement information.
• certificates (if scrape_detail is enabled): A list of certificates with details such as type, validity, and associated images.

4. Example Output

[
  {
    "area": "China",
    "companyId": "123456",
    "companyName": "ABC Solar Co., Ltd.",
    "url": "https://example.com/profile",
    "companyIcon": "https://example.com/icon.png",
    "companyImage": ["https://example.com/image1.png"],
    "goldYears": 5,
    "mainProduct": {
      "id": "7890",
      "subject": "Solar Panel",
      "price": "$100",
      "imageUrl": "https://example.com/product.png",
      "url": "https://example.com/product"
    },
    "productList": [],
    "provideProducts": "Solar panels, inverters",
    "replyAvgTime": "24h",
    "reviewCount": 100,
    "reviewScore": 4.8,
    "staff": "50-100",
    "capabilities": ["OEM", "ODM"],
    "transactions": 500,
    "vrUrl": "https://example.com/vr",
    "isAssessedSupplier": true,
    "newAd": null,
    "certificates": [
      {
        "certType": "ISO9001",
        "certificateValidityPeriod": "2023-2025",
        "certificateNo": "12345",
        "certificateName": "Quality Certification",
        "certificatePhotos": ["https://example.com/cert1.png"],
        "description": "Certification for quality management.",
        "certIntroduction": "ISO9001 certification details.",
        "certLogo": "https://example.com/logo.png"
      }
    ]
  }
]

5. Running the Actor

1. Deploy the Actor on the Apify platform.
2. Provide the input parameters in the Actor's input schema.
3. Run the Actor to scrape supplier data.
4. Retrieve the results from the Actor's dataset.

Notes

• Ensure that the input parameters are valid and correspond to existing Alibaba search criteria.
• The Actor uses proxies to handle requests and may require adjustments based on Alibaba's response behavior.
• Enabling scrape_detail may increase the runtime due to additional data fetching.