Python Code To Check If A Product Is In Stock

Originally Posted on with tags: python
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I am reading Chapter 13 of Al Sweigart’s Automate The Boring Stuff With Python 2nd ed book for some spreadsheet work. The Chapter 12 Web Scraping is also very interesting.

The first example in Web Scraping Chapter is to search Pypi website for python packages and open the search results on new browser tabs. It is easy to revise the program a little to check if a product is in stock or out of stock.

Here is a python script modified from the example. The script will check if a Ryobi Sander is in stock on direct tools outlet website. 

#!python3

#ryobiSander.py - Opens ryobi sander page on directtoolsoutlet page

import requests, webbrowser, bs4

print('Searching...')

url = 'https://www.directtoolsoutlet.com/Products/Power-Tools/' + 
      'Finishing-Tools/Sanders/RYOBI-ONE%2B-18-Volt-5-In-Random-Orbit-Sander/p/P411'

# url = 'https://www.directtoolsoutlet.com/' +
#        'Products/Power-Tools/RIDGID-13-In-Thickness-Planer/p/R4331' # test

res = requests.get(url)

res.raise_for_status()


soup = bs4.BeautifulSoup(res.text, 'html.parser')

buttonElem = soup.select('.js-add-to-cart')

# test code
#print(len(buttonElem))
#
#for b in buttonElem:
#    print(b)
#
#print(buttonElem[0].get('disabled') )  # disable is not a good indicator
#print(buttonElem[0].get('enabled') )
#
#print(buttonElem[0].attrs['class'])

if 'js-enable-btn' not in  buttonElem[0].attrs['class']:
    print('The button is disabled')
else:
    print('Opening ', url)
    webbrowser.open(url)

I have some other ideas to add to this program:

  • Add code to run the check every 1 hour or other time interval.
  • Find a way to click the Add To Cart button if it is enabled
  • Send an email or text message to remind that it is in stock

The code does not look complicated. The program shapes up to be a ticket scalping tool, and I am stopping the post right here.