Competitor Price Tracker
Daily automated scraping of 15 competitor sites with price-change alerts and a weekly intelligence dashboard.
5hrs
Weekly Time Saved
Real-time
Price Intelligence
12%
Margin Improvement
200+
SKUs Tracked Daily
Python
Scraping Logic
Browserless
Browser Engine
Airtable
Data Storage
n8n
Scheduler
The Problem
The Challenge
A DTC e-commerce brand selling specialty kitchen products was competing against 15 direct competitors across Amazon, their own sites, and marketplace listings. Every Monday, the pricing analyst spent 5+ hours manually visiting each competitor's site, recording prices for 200+ SKUs in a spreadsheet, and flagging significant changes. By the time the analysis was done, it was already stale. They were constantly reactive on pricing — often learning about competitor promotions days after they launched, losing sales in the process.
How We Fixed It
Our Solution
Mapped all 15 competitor sites and identified the CSS selectors / API endpoints for product names, prices, availability, and promotional badges.
Built Python scraping scripts using Browserless for sites requiring JavaScript rendering, with rotating proxies and request throttling to avoid blocks.
Deployed scrapers on n8n with daily scheduled runs (6 AM EST), with automatic retries and error reporting for any failed extractions.
All scraped data flows into Airtable with historical versioning — every price point is timestamped, enabling trend analysis and promotional pattern detection.
Configured Slack alerts for any price change exceeding 5% (up or down), new products added, or products going out of stock — delivered within 30 minutes of detection.
Built a weekly intelligence dashboard in Airtable showing price positioning maps, competitor promotional calendars, and recommended pricing actions.
Tools & Infrastructure
Tech Stack
Python
Scraping logic and data processing. Custom scripts handle diverse site structures, anti-bot challenges, and data normalization across 15 different sources.
Browserless
Headless browser infrastructure. Renders JavaScript-heavy competitor sites that can't be scraped with simple HTTP requests.
Airtable
Data storage and dashboarding. Stores historical pricing data with versioning, powers the intelligence dashboard, and enables ad-hoc analysis.
n8n
Scheduling and orchestration. Runs daily scraping jobs, handles errors and retries, and triggers Slack alerts for significant price changes.
Impact & Outcomes
The Results
5hrs
Weekly Time Saved
Eliminated 5+ hours of manual competitor research every week — the analyst now focuses on strategy, not data collection.
Real-time
Price Intelligence
Competitor price changes detected within hours instead of days — enabling same-day pricing responses.
12%
Margin Improvement
Data-driven pricing decisions improved gross margins by 12% over 90 days by optimizing positioning.
200+
SKUs Tracked Daily
200+ products across 15 competitors tracked automatically every single day with historical trend data.
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