
Show HN: Amazon Price Monitor (weekend project) - BigBalli
http://giacomoballi.com/amazonMonitor
======
will_hughes
Please kill this popup:

> Howdy!I notice you're probable living outside the US.Unfortunately at the
> moment the service only checks Amazon US... Sorry!

Yes, I know I'm not in the US, and if you only check Amazon.com, that's fine -
just show that you're checking 'Amazon.com'

~~~
BigBalli
thanks for feedback! It was just a quick add when Ik noticed a ton of people
from the UK trying to use it. What would be a better way to communicate until
other countries are supported? --most people don't make the connection that
when I say only "Amazon.com" it refers to the country (i.e. not other
retailers).

~~~
will_hughes
Perhaps a banner at the top of the page saying something along the lines of
"We only support Amazon.com (US) at this time."

------
lcw
If your affiliate account doesn't get shut down I would love to know how you
got through the process.

I did a similar thing, and they shut it down every time someone made a
purchase because I wasn't providing "original content". Despite my complaints
that there are/were plenty of people not providing original content they said
those affiliates were grandfathered in. It was an incredibly subjective
process that I eventually gave up on out of frustration

~~~
timbowhite
I had the exact same experience with a price comparison site for a specific
type of product. Got the same rejection + reason even after I spent time
writing original overviews and articles about the products in question.

------
Justin_K
How is it any different than Camelcamelcamel?

~~~
BigBalli
I believe it's more straightforward and feel like it wasn't always reliable.
Perhaps delays in their notification system, not sure.

~~~
netinstructions
I haven't had any issues using Camel Camel Camel for the last few years.

Additionally, I usually go there for price _history_ when trying to figure out
if now is a good time to buy or when trying to figure out what a good price
threshold is to receive alerts. Without historical price info it's hard to
know what a good "max price" is to set.

------
elsewhen
if you are thinking of monetizing this, you may run into trouble emailing
links with affiliate tags (see the Associates Program Policies [0])

you might be able to circumvent the problem by linking to your site for some
kind of landing page, and then linking off to amazon with an affiliate link.

[0] [https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/help/operating/policies](https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/help/operating/policies)

~~~
netinstructions
FYI, camelcamelcamel gets around this emailing users link to a special page on
their (camelcamelcamel.com) site that is just a redirect to the product page
on Amazon. Users see a brief message "Thanks for using Camel Camel Camel" or
something shortly before being redirected.

~~~
shimo5037
Unless the user takes a concrete action to confirm the redirect, that is not
allowed. Under Disqualified Purchases:

> (e) any Product purchased by a customer who is referred to an Amazon Site by
> a link that sends users indirectly to the Amazon Site via an intermediate
> site, without requiring the customer to click on a link or take some other
> affirmative action on that intermediate site (a “Redirecting Link”),

------
BigBalli
Hi everyone, this is a quick project I wanted to share. Made it for myself but
then tweaked it a bit so other could use it too.

Pretty simple goal: amazon price is checked regularly and you receive an email
when it is below whatever you set the trigger.

Obviously there are many additions I have in mind but will only put more time
if people want me to. Works fine as-is for me.

Let me know what you think or if you break it! :)

~~~
jasode
Are you web scraping the html or are you using Amazon's API[1] with an AWS
developer access key?

[1]
[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/EX_...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/EX_RetrievingPriceInformation.html)

~~~
BigBalli
Official API, no scraping.

~~~
jazoom
Don't you need to be an affiliate bringing them a decent amount of sales
before you get access to that. Usually there is a rate limit that makes it
impossible to keep up with all their prices. How did you get around that?

------
praneshp
Hey! The URL[0], shortens to the last part automatically[1], then complains
"Enter a URL" when I click on Go

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/Dell-UltraSharp-27-Inch-LED-Lit-
Monit...](https://www.amazon.com/Dell-UltraSharp-27-Inch-LED-Lit-
Monitor/dp/B00P0EQD1Q/)

[1] B00P0EQD1Q

~~~
BigBalli
thanks for letting me know! Just read the comment and have made quite a few
fixes since then. I doubt it's still an issue but if you have time, I'd love
to have confirmation. Thanks!

~~~
praneshp
Still breaking!

------
ArtDev
Hey man, if you can't/won't design the page, just use Bootstrap. It works
great and takes you 2 seconds to add.

I was sad when ebay bought decide.com so they could kill it. Check out the
wayback machine for some ideas about the interfaces they used :)

------
chad_strategic
So I embarked on a weekend project to teach myself node.js. It lasted a little
longer than weekend project. Regardless I have some nodejs experinece and 150k
amazon products. Eventually, I will move it over to Angular2, for some more
coding experience. Right now it's on Codeigniter/Bootstrap.

The problem isn't as much as a coding problem, but more of marketing problem.
I'm starting to think that getting people to click is more difficult than
coding, lol. It does make money, but could make more.

Any growthhackers out there, would be happy to talk.

[http://www.bestoftheinternets.com/Deals](http://www.bestoftheinternets.com/Deals)

~~~
mars4rp
Your data is not live see
[http://www.bestoftheinternets.com/Product/Wireless/Samsung-O...](http://www.bestoftheinternets.com/Product/Wireless/Samsung-
OEM-Wired-35mm-Headset-with-Microphone-Volume-Control-and-Call-Answer-End-
Button-for-Samsung-Galaxy-S7-and-S7-Edge-Bulk-Packaging-White)

~~~
chad_strategic
Ugh... Caching error.

------
raffleslodge
I am getting an HTTP ERROR 500.

~~~
BigBalli
Left an extra bracket in there while fixing other stuff. Thanks for letting me
know!

------
kd22
AFAIK, Amazon's privacy policy does NOT allow you to do web scraping from
their website. Read the policy carefully.

~~~
jasonkostempski
Is this doing that? If so, does the privacy policy even matter if no one
involved has agreed to it?

