Canon Direct Instock Alert Tool

[brianleighty]

So I'm starting to think about the next tool I'd like to release after PixStics which I just released: http://leightyphotography.com/PixStics/

One thing I've seen as a limitation of Canon's direct store is an in stock alert system. I'd like to remedy that with a tool that would check every minute and if a product you're interested comes in stock it can either email or text you. Especially during the times where the coupon is active I can see this being very useful.

Does anybody think this is a good idea? Obviously I would use it just like I use PixStics but I'd obviously like to make sure it'll be useful to others as well if I put a bunch of time into it. Thanks.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I use one to monitor the Canon Refurb store for 1D Mark IV availability.  It e-mails a notice when the product availability changes.
There are lots of web page trackers that can be customized.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=track+web+page+changes&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=track+web+page+changes&sc=2-22&sp=-1&sk=

[brianleighty]

I use one to monitor the Canon Refurb store for 1D Mark IV availability.  It e-mails a notice when the product availability changes.
There are lots of web page trackers that can be customized.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=track+web+page+changes&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=track+web+page+changes&sc=2-22&sp=-1&sk=

Good to know. I'll have to investigate this further.

[brianleighty]

Mt Spokane Photography, which one do you specifically use? I'd like to try it out and see how long it takes to see an update on a page. Thanks.

[brianleighty]

All my research seems to indicate most services only run once daily. This definitely wouldn't suffice for being alerted the minute a product is in stock.

[brianleighty]

So I decided to go ahead and make this script. Unfortunately right before I was going to release it Bryan Carnathan informed me that Canon now has a notify button on the store. It looks like this button is only on some of their products though. It also appears there is a delay between when a lens is back in stock and when it send out the email. I still need to research this some more but so far my scripts email has been arriving before Canon's. So I figure with Canon having a 15% off sale of their refurbished lenses I'll go ahead and put the link out there and you guys can use it if you want:

I noticed that unlike what Canon normally does of having a discount code, this time they just have it applied automatically which has me wondering if I should also have the script email a person if the price of the product drops. Thoughts anybody?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I noticed that button only two days ago, I am not ready to buy anything, and given the curious ups and downs of the site, I wonder if it will be reliable.
Still, it looks like a improvement, but may nale catching a popular lens difficult, since a thousand potential buyers will be notified once they place a few lenses in stock.

[brianleighty]

I noticed that button only two days ago, I am not ready to buy anything, and given the curious ups and downs of the site, I wonder if it will be reliable.
Still, it looks like a improvement, but may nale catching a popular lens difficult, since a thousand potential buyers will be notified once they place a few lenses in stock.

Yeah for some reason their store always seems slow. I'll have to setup more notifications on Canon's side and see which is faster there's or mine. I have a feeling if I changed my script to check every minute then I could easily beat there's but I'm leaving at every 5 minutes for now.

[brianleighty]

So wanted to give an update. I've gotten three alerts and oddly enough the Canon email has arrived 1 minute after I get my own email each time. Which is saying something since I'm only checking every 5 minutes currently. Something else I noticed this last time since several products came back in stock at once is that while I got five or six emails from my script, I only got one from Canon. In my other email account I got an alert for another lens. I don't know if Canon is limiting users to only one product per email address to be notified or what but it's an interesting development. If anybody has any input on which is faster or if you only get one email from Canon or anything like that I'd love to know about it. I am planning to add in a history of when each product was last in stock as well to make it easier to find patterns and how long a product is out of stock on average.

[distant.star]

.
Sounds like you're doing a good thing for folks looking for something specific.

I'll try it out when I'm in the market for something.

Thanks.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I have used "Follow that Page"  it is very customizable and seems to work well.
https://www.followthatpage.com/

[brianleighty]

I have used "Follow that Page"  it is very customizable and seems to work well.
https://www.followthatpage.com/

The issue I see with sites like that is the most often they'll check it once an hour (and only one at that). Most popular lenses will go out of stock before you even get notified with a service like that. Sites like that are good where immediate notification is not important.

As I said, I also plan to add several improvements. One I didn't mention yet that I will likely add is sending an email or text when the price changes since in the case of this last sale there wasn't even a discount code just that the price of all the lenses were reduced 15%. I'm trying to decide whether it should only alert the user if the price goes down or both ways though.

[brianleighty]

Just thought I'd give another update. The Canon 70-200 IS L II Refurbished came back in stock last night. Once again my script sent me the email 1 minute earlier. What's even more interesting is I had the product setup for an alert on my other email account as well for Canon. The first one came at 2:45 but the other account didn't get the email until 3:01. Yikes! Canon's server sure must be slow for it to take that long. Either that or they must have a huge number of people using the notify tool.

[JBL]

You can also try the in-stock notification tool built into canonpricewatch, which works really well for refurbs. I picked up a 24-70 and also the 70-200 II last 20% discount, this way.

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/canon-refurb-stock-tracker/

It's handy in that it tells you when something was last in stock, which gives you an idea of how rare something is. On their facebook page, they mentioned that they check every 15 seconds and get notifications out within seconds of that.

[brianleighty]

You can also try the in-stock notification tool built into canonpricewatch, which works really well for refurbs. I picked up a 24-70 and also the 70-200 II last 20% discount, this way.

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/canon-refurb-stock-tracker/

It's handy in that it tells you when something was last in stock, which gives you an idea of how rare something is. On their facebook page, they mentioned that they check every 15 seconds and get notifications out within seconds of that.

Thanks JBL. I was unaware of this. I'm going to setup alerts on there and test the speed between their script and mine. I'll post results after I've tested it out.

So another update on Canon's store. A bunch of products came back in stock tonight. My emails arrived 18 minutes before Canon's did. I'm amazed how many good products are still in stock. Perhaps because it's still early morning.