Price Tracker

💰 Track product prices and get alerts when prices drop below your threshold. Perfect for deal hunting, market research, and price monitoring.

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📺 What It Tracks

• Current Price: Latest product price
• Price History: Previous price stored in Key-Value Store
• Price Changes: Calculated price difference and percentage change
• Threshold Alerts: Automatic alerts when price drops below threshold
• Price Drop Detection: Identifies when prices decrease

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🚀 Key Features

Feature	Description
💾 Price History	Stores price history in Key-Value Store for comparison
🔔 Smart Alerts	Automatic alerts when price drops below threshold
📊 Price Analytics	Calculates price change and percentage difference
🔄 Retry Logic	3 automatic retries on fetch failure
⏱️ Smart Timeouts	60-second navigation timeout with load event waiting
🤖 Anti-Bot Measures	Includes viewport, headers, and browser fingerprinting evasion
📈 Webhook Integration	Alerts stored in Key-Value Store for webhook triggers

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📥 Input

Required

• productUrl (string): The URL of the product to track
  • Example: "https://www.amazon.com/product"
• threshold (number): Alert when price drops below this value
  • Example: 50.00

Optional

• storeName (string, default: "default"): Key-value store name for tracking

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📤 Output

Returns comprehensive price tracking data:

First Run (No Previous Price)

{
  "url": "https://amazon.com/product",
  "currentPrice": 49.99,
  "previousPrice": null,
  "priceChange": null,
  "priceChangePercent": null,
  "threshold": 50.00,
  "isBelowThreshold": true,
  "priceDropped": false,
  "alert": false,
  "isFirstRun": true,
  "message": "First run - price baseline established",
  "timestamp": "2024-01-01T12:00:00.000Z",
  "_metadata": {
    "runId": "abc123",
    "actorId": "user/price-tracker",
    "processedAt": "2024-01-01T12:00:00.000Z"
  }
}

Price Drop Detected

{
  "url": "https://amazon.com/product",
  "currentPrice": 49.99,
  "previousPrice": 59.99,
  "priceChange": -10.00,
  "priceChangePercent": -16.67,
  "threshold": 50.00,
  "isBelowThreshold": true,
  "priceDropped": true,
  "alert": true,
  "isFirstRun": false,
  "message": "Price dropped from $59.99 to $49.99 (-16.67% decrease). Below threshold of $50.00!",
  "timestamp": "2024-01-01T12:00:00.000Z",
  "_metadata": {
    "runId": "abc123",
    "actorId": "user/price-tracker",
    "processedAt": "2024-01-01T12:00:00.000Z"
  }
}

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💡 Use Cases

• ✅ Deal Hunting - Get alerts when products drop below your price
• ✅ Price Monitoring - Track competitor pricing over time
• ✅ Market Research - Analyze price trends and fluctuations
• ✅ E-commerce Dashboards - Monitor product prices at scale
• ✅ Automated Alerts - Set up webhooks for price drop notifications
• ✅ Budget Management - Track prices for wishlist items

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⚙️ Technical Details

• Extraction Method: Browser-based scraping using Playwright
• Storage: Price history stored in Key-Value Store with SHA-256 hashed keys
• Retry Strategy: 3 automatic retries on fetch failure
• Timeout Strategy: 60-second navigation timeout with load event waiting
• Anti-Bot Measures: Viewport size, realistic headers, browser fingerprinting evasion
• Alert Storage: Alerts stored in ALERT key for webhook integration

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🔗 Integration

Webhooks

Configure webhooks in Apify to trigger on:

• Run succeeded: Check OUTPUT key for summary
• Alert triggered: Check ALERT key for alert details

Example webhook payload:

{
  "runId": "abc123",
  "status": "SUCCEEDED",
  "alertKey": "ALERT",
  "alertData": {
    "currentPrice": 49.99,
    "previousPrice": 59.99,
    "message": "Price dropped..."
  }
}

Key-Value Store

• OUTPUT: Run summary with success status
• ALERT: Alert data (only set when alert triggered)
• product-{hash}: Price history for each product (SHA-256 hashed URL)

Scheduled Runs

Set up Apify Schedules to run periodically:

• Daily price checks
• Hourly monitoring
• Custom intervals

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📝 Example Usage

Basic Price Tracking

{
  "productUrl": "https://www.amazon.com/product",
  "threshold": 50.00
}

With Custom Store Name

{
  "productUrl": "https://www.amazon.com/product",
  "threshold": 50.00,
  "storeName": "my-price-tracker"
}

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⚠️ Important Notes

• First Run: previousPrice, priceChange, and priceChangePercent will be null on the first run
• Price History: Stored in Key-Value Store using SHA-256 hashed product URLs
• Supported Sites: Works with Amazon, Shopify stores, and generic e-commerce sites
• Success Reporting: Only reports success when price is successfully extracted and stored