From Idea to Implementation: Building an Amazon Price Tracker with Python and Flask
As a college student passionate about programming and eager to learn more about Python, I recently embarked on an exciting project to create an Amazon Price Tracking System.
With the help of libraries such as requests, BeautifulSoup, and Flask, I was able to integrate both the front-end and back-end to develop a functional landing page.
In this blog post, I aim to share my experience and provide a step-by-step guide for fellow students who wish to undertake a similar project for academic purposes.
Setting the Stage
Before diving into the details, let's understand the objective of this project. The Amazon Price Tracking System is designed to monitor the price fluctuations of products on the Amazon e-commerce platform. By entering the URL of a product, the system will scrape the price information periodically and notify the user when the price drops below a specified threshold.
Getting Started
To begin with, we need to set up our development environment. Make sure you have Python installed on your system, preferably the latest version. Create a new project folder and navigate to it using the command prompt or terminal.
Step 1: Installing Dependencies
Open your command prompt or terminal and install the necessary libraries using pip, the package installer for Python. Execute the following commands:
pip install requests
pip install BeautifulSoup4
pip install Flask
Step 2: Gathering Product Information
To retrieve the price information from Amazon, we will utilize the requests and BeautifulSoup libraries. Python's requests library allows us to send HTTP requests, while BeautifulSoup helps parse the HTML content of a webpage.
Using requests, we will send a GET request to the Amazon product URL. After receiving the HTML content, we will use BeautifulSoup to extract the relevant information, such as the product title and price.
Step 3: Implementing the Backend with Flask
Now, it's time to set up the backend using the Flask framework. Flask is a lightweight web framework that allows us to create web applications easily. We will use it to build our server and handle the routing between our HTML pages.
First, import the necessary modules and initialize the Flask application. Then, define the routes that correspond to each page. For instance, you can have a route for the landing page ("/") and another for the second page ("/price_track").
Step 4: Designing the Frontend with HTML and CSS
To create an engaging user interface, we'll design the front end using HTML and CSS. HTML provides the structure and content of our pages, while CSS helps us style them. You can use any text editor or integrated development environment (IDE) to write the HTML and CSS code.
For the landing page, design a simple form that allows the user to input the Amazon product URL and desired price threshold. Upon submission, the form should redirect the user to the second page, where they can view the tracked product and its current price.
Step 5: Integrating Frontend and Backend
To connect the front-end and back-end, we'll make use of Flask's template rendering feature. Flask allows us to create dynamic HTML templates that can be rendered with data from our Python code.
In the backend, modify the route that handles the form submission ("/") to extract the user's input and store it. Then, pass this data to the second page's route ("/price_track") and render the template with the corresponding values.
Conclusion
Congratulations! By following these steps, you have successfully created a basic Amazon Price Tracking System using Python, Flask, and a combination of front-end technologies. Although this project is purely for academic purposes, it serves as an excellent learning experience for students interested in Python and building practical applications.
To further explore and access the full-fledged code of this project, you can find it on my GitHub. Feel free to fork the repository, experiment with different features, or use it as a reference for your projects.
Remember, there are numerous ways to enhance this project further. You can implement sms notifications, add a database to store product information, or even deploy the application to a cloud server. The possibilities are endless, and I encourage you to explore and experiment with different ideas.
I hope this blog post has inspired you to undertake exciting projects and expand your programming skills. By sharing my experience, I aim to assist fellow students in their journey towards creating innovative and meaningful projects.