Hello, First of all, sorry for my bad english! I am from Sweden. I have an online store selling model cars. I buy most of my cars from one really big online store who gives me wholesale discounts. My problem: The store I buy from, updates their inventory very often, but since they have 3000+ items, it is impossible for me to know when he takes out some models since he doesn't say it somewhere when a model runs out of stock, he just removes it. This is the problem for my store since very often I must tell me customers that the item they want, have been sold out. Now would it be possible to make a program that would somehow work as a "spider" to see what he has, then it reports to me, then it tells me when something is no longer there etc? Maybe there is a program like this already? Thanks for any help i can get!
The problem with them is they only speak german and they aren't to happy so answer emails thanks anyway...anyone else got tips?
You could create a spidering program to grab the content but you will need to check your T&Cs of sale in case the spider makes an error in its collection. The other thing to look at is if they feature on any price comparison sites as whilst they may not technically offer an affiliate scheme with a webservice or xml feed of products/ pricing most price comparison sites run off an XML feed so it will most likely exist if they are on them
As said you need script which will check every day the page, if it will get 404 then mark item as sold. Its not complex task. I dont think it will be cost more then $100 on some freelance marketplaces as rentacoder.
Thanks guys, hmm now i just need someone to do it. Where can i find people who can make this for me? Thanks again!
You need a spider which scans the site eveyday and reports any diseprencies which are found over time. I can do it if you want , PM me the detail of the site, what exactly you want tracked and a rough budget you have in mind for the project.