Inspiration
In a world where online shopping is increasingly prevalent, tracking price changes becomes crucial for savvy consumers looking to maximize savings. I've hesitated to buy many items on Amazon, knowing they will get cheaper, but I ultimately don't have time to constantly track the prices of all the items I want. I've been wanting to create this program for a while now, but didn't know where to start. This hackathon was the perfect opportunity to learn new skills and finally develop the project I've been dreaming of.
What it does
Amazon Price Tracker provides a seamless solution for users to monitor price fluctuations of their desired products on Amazon. It sends personalized notifications when prices drop, empowering users to make informed purchase decisions and save money effortlessly. The user inputs their phone number and the links to any items on their Amazon wishlist, and the prices will be monitored using web-scraping. When any of their products have a price drop of over 10%, they will get a text alert telling them how much the price dropped, including the link so they can easily purchase the product.
How we built it
We utilized a combination of web scraping techniques, Python programming, and Twilio's messaging service to create Amazon Price Tracker. There are three separate files:
- Enter_Links.py - When the user wants to add links to track, run this program. Many different users can enter items and it will store their phone numbers so they can receive a text when necessary.
- Price_Tracker.py - Compares the current prices of all the items entered in the tracker with the prices when the alert was set up, and if they dropped over 10%, a text will be sent to the users phone number.
- Check_Every_Hour.py - Runs the Price_Tracker.py every hour, so when the price is updated the user can be alerted.
Challenges we ran into
The hardest challenge was figuring out where to start. We have never used APIs or Twilio before, so we had to do a lot of research before we could figure out how to build this program. We learned more and more as we built our program, and in the end we gained so much knowledge. Integrating Twilio's API smoothly with our application posed some technical hurdles, but through teamwork, we were able to find all the solutions.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud to have created a practical solution that addresses a common consumer pain point. We gained so much knowledge that we can now transfer to numerous different projects, and we are proud that we challenged ourselves and successfully completed our goal.
What we learned
Through this project, we gained valuable experience in web scraping and API integration. We also learned the importance of robust error handling and data validation to ensure the reliability of our service.
What's next for Amazon Price Tracker
In the future, we plan to create a user-friendly interface for this program, such as a website. We also plan to enhance the functionality of Amazon Price Tracker by incorporating additional e-commerce platforms beyond Amazon. We want to add a feature where the user can respond back to the text and choose whether to keep the product alert on or remove it from the list. In addition, we aim to implement more advanced features such as price trend analysis and user customization options to further enrich the user experience.
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