Price Tracker Bot

A Python-based price tracking bot that monitors product prices on Best Buy and sends email alerts when prices drop below target thresholds. The bot stores data in a PostgreSQL database and should be scheduled to run automatically once a day.

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Features

• Scrapes product prices from Best Buy (currently the only supported website)
• Stores products, websites, and price history in PostgreSQL
• Sends email notifications to configured recipients when prices are below target
• Supports multiple email recipients configured in a JSON file

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Upcoming Plans

• Add support for Walmart, Target, and Amazon price tracking
• Improve scraping reliability and expand to additional retailers
• Add more robust error handling and retry logic

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Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• PostgreSQL database
• Required Python packages (see requirements.txt):
  • psycopg2
  • requests
  • beautifulsoup4
  • python-dotenv

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Setup

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/price-tracker-bot.git
   cd price-tracker-bot

2. Create and activate a virtual environment

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # macOS/Linux
.venv\Scripts\activate     # Windows

3. Install Dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Set up PostgreSQL

• Create a database for the bot.
• Update your DATABASE_URL connection string.

5. Configure environment variables Create a .env file locally (do NOT commit):

DATABASE_URL=your_postgres_connection_string
GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD=your_gmail_app_password

Add products and emails config

• products.json: list of products with target prices and URLs (must be Best Buy URLs currently)
• config.json: list of email addresses to notify

config.json

This JSON file contains the email addresses that will receive price alert notifications. It should have the following format:

{
  "emails": [
    "user1@example.com",
    "user2@example.com",
    "user3@example.com"
  ]
}

You can add as many recipient emails as you want inside the "emails" array. The bot reads this file each time it runs and sends alerts to all listed addresses.