Supermarket Price Notifications - Should I Write a Script?

WaywardOne on 13/06/2015 - 16:51
Last edited 23/04/2024 - 07:52 by 1 other user

Hey guys,

I would like to receive an email notification every time a certain product goes on special. For example, I regularly buy long life rice milk, and I'd really like to know when they go on special.

I know coles.com.au does not offer this service. Sometimes the rice milk specials aren't mentioned in the weekly catalogues. Can I somehow write a script? Somewhat like camelcamelcamel.com does for Amazon — but I'd like it for Coles.

What language should I use? Any recommendations? Is this even possible?

• 

  tinx on 13/06/2015 - 18:35

  +2

  maybe use website like http://www.changedetection.com/

  to monitor change on each page?

  http://shop.coles.com.au/online/vic-metro-oakleigh/vitasoy-m…

  takes a lot of time if you have a lot u want to monitor

  maybe try one page and see if it does work or not

  • 

    WaywardOne on 13/06/2015 - 20:38

    Awesome. I've set up a weekly alert on that changedetection.com — I'll see how well it works.

    I'm really impressed that it was so easy — I was expecting to have to learn some scripting language.

    • 

      tinx on 13/06/2015 - 23:35

      plenty of web change detection website

      try different one, might be better / offer better feature such as push to your mobile :)

      check review like this maybe http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/detect-website-change-notificat…

      (not my website just a quick google)

    • 

      kiwijunglist on 23/04/2024 - 06:49

      have you got it working for price change or price below a certain level? i was unable to get it going to alert for a price below a certain limit.

      if you got it going for price below a certain level can you share/ screenshot the code for that.

• 

  scrimshaw on 13/06/2015 - 18:56

  +2

  You could get in contact with Gecko. In 2012 he launched a price scraper that tracked prices of appliances and electronics in various stores.

  Site is now dead though. Maybe nobody was really interested in it, or it cost too much to run. Or maybe they ran into legal issues, because some web sites forbid the use of web crawlers or scrapers — they wouldn't like it if you used such a service for example, to aid their competition.

  Here is a list of price comparison websites. Some are scrapers, some are not.
  https://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/list_of_price_comparison_s…