Shopping online can be frustrating when you miss a great deal because you didn’t check the price at the right time. Existing tools track price history or send delayed alerts, but none notify users instantly when a wishlisted item goes on sale. A real-time price alert system could help shoppers capitalize on flash sales and limited-time discounts without constant manual checks.

How It Could Work

A web-based wishlist tool could let users bookmark products from major e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay. The system would continuously monitor these items and send alerts via email, SMS, or push notifications the moment prices drop. Key features might include:

• Cross-platform tracking: Aggregating wishlisted items from multiple retailers in one place.
• Real-time notifications: Alerts triggered within seconds of a price change.
• Custom thresholds: Users could set specific price points (e.g., "notify me if this drops below $50").

Benefits and Stakeholder Alignment

For shoppers, this saves time and ensures they never miss a deal. E-commerce platforms and affiliate networks could benefit from increased traffic and conversions. One way to avoid conflicts with retailers might be to use affiliate partnerships or APIs instead of scraping, which could violate terms of service.

Getting Started

An MVP could begin with basic price polling (e.g., checking Amazon and eBay every 5 minutes) and email alerts. Early adoption could be tested through a waitlist or manual alerts for a small user group. As the system scales, real-time monitoring and additional retailers could be added.

Potential challenges include balancing alert frequency to avoid overwhelming users and ensuring compliance with e-commerce platform rules. However, by letting users customize notification thresholds and focusing on affiliate partnerships, these hurdles could be addressed gradually.