Alibaba.com is one of the largest and most popular online marketplaces, connecting millions of buyers and sellers around the world and facilitating transactions between them.
The most recent studies show that Alibaba is a leading force in the realm of e-commerce, accounting for more than 12 billion orders on an annual basis.
There are over 8 million sellers on Alibaba from a wide range of categories, including electronics, clothing, machinery, and raw materials. This means that to stay competitive in the market each seller needs to perform regular product and price monitoring.
In addition, buyers also need to make sure they are aware of the prices on Alibaba in order to get the best deals with the best prices.
Manually tracking prices on Alibaba can be time-consuming and prone to errors. By using automated monitoring tools, like Hexowatch, businesses and individuals can automate the process and receive real-time notifications when prices change, making it easier to stay on top of market changes and adjust pricing strategies accordingly or purchase the desired products with the best prices.
In this tutorial, we show you how to monitor Alibaba products and easily get price drop alerts.
To get started, be sure to have a Hexowatch.com account.
Hexowatch has 13 monitors, enabling you to track almost any changes on any website, including visual changes, HTML code changes, keywords, tech stacks, and many more.
In this tutorial, you will learn
#1 How to use Visual monitoring to track Alibaba products.
#2 How to use HTML monitoring to get Alibaba product price drop alerts
Ready? Let’s go!
#1 How to use Visual monitoring to track Alibaba products for changes
Let’s start by monitoring any product category from Alibaba. Our Visual monitor helps to detect any visual changes on the targeted web page.
Step 1: Capture the desired Alibaba product listings URL(s)
Go to Alibaba.com and capture the desired page URL.
For example,
Step 2: Select Visual Monitoring of Hexowatch
Go to your Hexowatch.com dashboard, click New Monitor and from the monitors’ list, select Visual monitoring. This monitor enables you to choose to add a single URL or bulk URLs to monitor.
Step 3: Insert the captured page URL in Hexowatch
Next, insert the captured Alibaba product listings page URL in Hexowatch. Then click Preview.
Step 4: Start monitoring
Now, you can set your monitoring preferences. For example, choose the sensitivity, the frequency of checks ( we will set 1 day), proxy mode (Data center/Residential GEO), desired notification channels, and more.
Then, click Start Monitoring.
Step 5: View and save the detected changes
Once any visual changes have been detected, you can view them in the Monitored URLs section of Hexowatch.
You can then export the results to Google Sheets or CSV.
#2 How to use HTML monitoring to get Alibaba product price drop alerts
Once you find your desired Alibaba product you tend to buy it at the lowest possible price.
However, to catch the moment and buy it with a big sale, you need to daily check the product page manually.
The Hexowatch HTML monitor, can monitor the prices of your desired products and alert you any time the price drops.
Step 1: Capture the desired product page URL
Go to Alibaba.com and capture the desired product page URL.
Step 2: Select HTML Monitoring of Hexowatch
Go to your Hexowatch.com dashboard, click New Monitor and from the monitors’ list, select HTML monitoring.
Step 3: Insert the product page URL in Hexowatch
Next, insert the captured Alibaba product page URL in Hexowatch. Then click Preview.
Step 4: Start monitoring
Once the page has loaded, you can select and click on any field from the page to track and monitor the area for changes. Once you have selected the area to monitor, choose the sensitivity and how frequently the page should be checked.
In this case, we will select the price and click Show element HTML code.
Then, click Select with Conditions.
Next, specify the necessary condition. Add the selected data (the current price of the product), the condition (Less than), and the maximum price.
Save the condition.
Then, click Start Monitoring.
Step 5: View and save the detected changes
Once any HTML code changes in the pricing of the product have been detected, you can view them in the Monitored URLs section of Hexowatch.
Automate page change monitoring with Hexowatch
Hexowatch is your AI sidekick to monitor any website for visual, content, source code, technology, availability, or price changes.
Hexowatch works 24/7 to help spot trends, spy on your competitors, visually check your website, keep an archive of every change and turn any website into your own private data source accessing changes as a downloadable CSV file, google sheets, or via Zapier.
Monitor any website and get started in minutes – no software, proxies, or programming required
