Camera Equipment UK Price Drop Alerts

Criss Cross, originally uploaded by Me (?).

In my last post I said I would really like to be able to create a price drop alert email to tell me when a specific product reaches a specific price or has been discounted heavily.

I am sure there is a proper service somewhere that does this but I thought it would be a good excuse to create a really basic mashup using Yahoo Pipes.

What this 'thing' allows you to do is create an RSS feed filtered by brand/product and also by the amount that the price has dropped by.

You can then use Yahoo RSS Alerts to email you the feed when it changes.

Great! Well it is a bit "String and Sellotape" but I like fiddling!

Step 1: Create a Filtered Feed

Go to my Price Buster Yahoo Pipe at pipes.yahoo.com/xrrr/camerapricebuster

Click "Run Pipe" to see the raw camerapricebuster.co.uk price drop feed so you can see what sort of information is in the feed.

Enter a product or brand into the "Fliter Text" box - for example enter "Canon" for all Canon products or "300" for all 300mm lenses. This will filter the original feed so that only the words you enter end up in the result. You can test it by clicking "Run Pipe".

If you want to limit results by the size of the price drop then enter a number into the "Price Drop" box - for example enter "9" to remove all feed items where the price drop was less than (and including) £9.00. Again you can test by clicking "Run Pipe".

If you want to limit results below a maximum price then enter a number into the "Price Lower Than" box. Any item with a price higher than the price you enter will be filtered out.

So if for example you wanted to get an email when a Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens is priced lower than, say, £700 (I wish) you would enter:
Price Lower Than = 700
Filter Text = "24-105"

If you are entering a product that is not already in the list then you need to be careful you use the same item name as the camerapricebuster.co.uk or else it will not work.

Step 2: Create an Alert

When you are happy with your new feed click on the "Get as RSS" button and copy and paste the RSS URL:

e.g.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=4kKo4O0B3hGmiar4PhJ3AQ&_render=rss&filter=24-105&price=400

Press the back button on your browser and press "More Options" and then "Results by Email or Phone". Note: you may need to be logged on to Yahoo in order to do this.

Fill in the form and start receiving your personalised price drop email notifications.

Job done.