Automated Price Monitoring

Target Audience

• E-commerce Managers: To monitor product prices automatically and receive alerts on price changes.
• Developers: For integrating web scraping functionalities into their applications.
• Data Analysts: To collect pricing data for analysis and reporting.
• Marketing Professionals: To track competitors' pricing strategies and adjust their own accordingly.

Problem Solved

This workflow automates the process of monitoring product prices from various online sources. It addresses the challenge of manually checking prices, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors. By using this workflow, users can:

• Receive timely notifications when prices drop, ensuring they never miss a deal.
• Store and manage price data efficiently, enabling data-driven decision-making.
• Reduce the risk of human error in tracking price changes.

Workflow Steps

1. Scheduled Trigger: The workflow is triggered every 15 minutes using a cron job, ensuring frequent updates on product prices.
2. Initialization: The initItem function initializes the workflow by setting up the items to be monitored.
3. Web Fetching: The fetchWeb node retrieves the HTML content of the specified product links.
4. HTML Extraction: The HTML Extract node parses the fetched HTML to extract the current price based on the provided CSS selector.
5. Price Processing: The getActualPrice function processes the extracted price, converting it to a float and checking if it exists.
6. File Management: The workflow checks if a previous price data file exists and handles it accordingly, either by updating or creating a new file.
7. Price Comparison: The workflow compares the new price with the previously saved price. If there is a drop, it triggers a notification.
8. Notifications: If a better price is found, an email notification is sent to the user with the new and old prices along with the product link. If the price extraction fails, it sends an alert for manual checking.