Price tracking and alert system with Amazon Product Data API integration.
Having established an idea for a price tracking system, I wanted to develop a website that would alert it’s users if prices for any individual Amazon product dropped below a preconfigured amount, globally. Considerations for different languages, currencies and time-zones would need to be taken into account.
Storing historic product pricing
I integrated with Amazon’s Product Data API and ran scheduled scripts to log and track daily price data in order to trigger email alerts when a product dropped to, or below, a certain amount. Users would be able to find and configure price alerts of any product listed on Amazon, worldwide. I also developed a login system to give the option for user's to create an account to keep track of their products and alerts.
Worldwide coverage
The website was fully responsive (see below) and split into 7 country subdomains, with timezones and currency conversions for each:
- us.slashazon.com (America - primary: slashazon.com)
- uk.slashazon.com (United Kingdom)
- fr.slashazon.com (France)
- es.slashazon.com (Spain)
- ca.slashazon.com (Canada)
- it.slashazon.com (Italy)
- de.slashazon.com (Germany)
Bookmarklet and Chrome Extension
To help users easily and quickly start tracking products, I created a bookmarklet that could be used whilst browsing the Amazon website - upon clicking it, the user would be redirected to the Slashazon website and start tracking the very product they were on, or display it's price history if it was already being tracked.
I also developed a Chrome Extension to be used whilst browsing the Amazon website. You could then configure all price tracking from the same page.
To promote interest in the new website, I ran a blog and set up Google Ads.
Proved popular
The system worked! Branded as “Slashazon”, products were easily added to the system by the website users, which could then be price tracked from that point on. It gained a lot of traction, featuring on HotUKDeals.co.uk, and proved successful through Amazon’s Associate Central.
However, the website was unfortunately shut down due to not abiding by Amazon's OoS.