The Smart Price Tracking Telegram Bot is an advanced solution tailored for e-commerce resellers, allowing them to monitor and track product prices across multiple e-commerce platforms in real-time. The bot simplifies the price-checking process by sending timely updates and insights, enabling resellers to optimize their purchasing strategies and stay ahead of market trends. With this bot, users can receive notifications about price drops, stock changes, and discounts, all via the Telegram app.

Technologies Used

Programming Language:
  • Python
Telegram Bot API:
  • Python-telegram-bot library
Web Scraping:
  • BeautifulSoup
  • Scrapy
  • Selenium for dynamic content scraping
APIs:

E-commerce platform APIs (e.g., Amazon, eBay, AliExpress) for product data retrieval

Task Scheduling:

Celery and Redis for handling periodic tasks and real-time alerts

Database:

MongoDB or PostgreSQL for storing user preferences, product data, and price histories

Key Features & Contributions:

1. Real-Time Price Tracking:
  • Built web scraping modules using BeautifulSoup, Scrapy, and Selenium to extract real-time product prices from various e-commerce platforms.
  • Integrated official APIs for platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress to ensure accurate and reliable price data, avoiding potential issues with frequent scraping.
  • Allowed users to track multiple products simultaneously by simply sharing product links via the bot
2. Dynamic Price Alerts:
  • Designed an alert system that sends notifications to users when product prices drop or reach a predefined threshold.
  • Configured flexible alert settings, allowing users to set custom price thresholds or percentage discounts to trigger notifications.
  • Created a system for tracking changes in stock availability and price volatility, giving resellers timely insights into product trends.
3.Historical Price Data and Trends:
  • Developed a feature that logs historical price data for tracked products, enabling users to view price trends over time.
  • Visualized price changes through graphs and charts within Telegram, helping users analyze trends and make informed purchasing decisions.
4.Customizable User Preferences:
  • Implemented user-specific settings, allowing resellers to manage their product watchlists, set alert preferences, and choose update frequencies (e.g., hourly, daily).
  • Integrated commands such as /addproduct, /removeproduct, /checkprice, and /setalert to provide users with a simple interface to manage their product tracking preferences
5. Task Scheduling and Real-Time Updates:
  • Used Celery and Redis for background task management, ensuring the bot periodically checks for price updates and sends notifications without overwhelming the user or the server.
  • Ensured that the system operates efficiently, even with multiple users and large product watchlists, by implementing task queues and parallel processing.
6.Price Comparison Across Platforms:
  • Implemented a price comparison feature that allows users to track the same product across multiple e-commerce platforms, showing where it is currently available at the lowest price.
  • Provided users with instant access to comparison charts that highlight price differences between platforms like Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress.
7. Stock Availability Alerts:
  • Added functionality to notify users when a previously out-of-stock item becomes available, giving resellers a competitive advantage in acquiring products with high demand.
  • Integrated push notifications for flash sales or discounts on tracked products.
8. Security and User Privacy:
  • Ensured the secure handling of user data and credentials when interacting with e-commerce APIs. Encrypted sensitive information and followed best practices for data privacy.
  • Limited bot access to user-specific data only, ensuring that each user’s product list and preferences remain private.
9.Mobile-Friendly Interface:
  • Designed the bot’s interface with mobile users in mind, ensuring that price updates, graphs, and product details are easy to view and interact with on Telegram’s mobile app.
  • Optimized notifications to be concise yet informative, with quick access links to product pages and more detailed analytics.
  • Challenges Overcome
    • Dynamic Content Scraping: Many e-commerce websites use dynamic content loading, making scraping more complex. By using Selenium and Scrapy, I was able to handle JavaScript-rendered pages effectively.
    • Avoiding Scraping Limitations: To prevent the bot from being blocked by e-commerce platforms, I incorporated API integrations where possible and optimized scraping frequency and behavior to minimize server load.

    The Smart Price Tracking Telegram Bot has become a powerful tool for e-commerce resellers looking to stay competitive in the market. By providing real-time price updates, detailed historical trends, and cross-platform comparisons, the bot enables resellers to make data-driven purchasing decisions, ultimately boosting their profitability. Its intuitive interface and timely notifications make it a valuable asset for resellers across various industries.