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How to Scrape Best Buy Product Data: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

How to Scrape Best Buy Product Data

Augustas Pelakauskas

2023-04-023 min read
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Product tracking, dynamic pricing, MAP monitoring - the use cases for e-commerce data are plentiful. This guide showcases how to extract product data from Best Buy at scale and in real time. 

With Best Buy Scraper API, you can extract search results, reviews, product data, and monitor prices maintenance-free. Read on for scraping considerations and code samples in Python.

What is Best Buy?

Best Buy is a worldwide consumer electronics retailer with shops across the US, Canada, and Mexico. At Best Buy, you can browse and buy items from an extensive selection, including electronics, appliances, and entertainment.

Overview of the Best Buy page structure

The scraping target – a Best Buy search page – lists different products against a search query. The screenshot below highlights different parts of the page. 

Best Buy page structure

In the image above, a search query “4k monitor” lists all the available 4K monitors in the store and their product attributes. 

The attributes are:

  • Product Title

  • Product Model, SKU, and its Rating

  • Product Shipping and Pickup Information

  • Product Price

  • Product Image

Best Buy is a public data source available for fair use as defined in the legislation of the country the data collection is conducted in. To ensure you’re in line with the terms of service and applicable laws regarding web data extraction, the Oxylabs team suggests seeking professional legal guidance. Also, check our blog post on the topic: is web scraping legal?

The nuances of scraping Best Buy

The most important consideration when accessing Best Buy is limited locations. The website is only available in the US, Canada, and Mexico, prompting you to use proxies for geotargeting.

Moreover, in addition to proxies, you should consider auxiliary measures, such as browser fingerprinting, to avoid being blocked while scraping. Luckily, Oxylabs Scraper APIs come with in-built AI-powered anti-blocking solutions.

Scraping Best Buy products page

To scrape a Best Buy product page with Best Buy Scraper API, send an HTTP POST request to the API with a proper payload and wait for the response. The API scrapes the target page on your behalf and returns a response with the desired data. You can further parse this response to extract structured data.

1. Set up the environment

Your system should run Python 3.6+ with the Requests library installed. You can install Requests using the pip install requests command.

Make sure you have valid user credentials to use the API. You can register for a free trial by visiting the Best Buy API page and clicking the Get free trial button.

2. Create a payload

To scrape data from a product page, first, create the payload structure. Keep in mind to use the universal_ecommerce source of E-Commerce Scraper API.  To learn more about source attributes, visit our documentation.

payload = {
	'source': 'universal_ecommerce',
	'url': 'https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=4k+monitor&_dyncharset=UTF-8&_dynSessConf=&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&af=true&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys',
	'geo_location': 'United States',
}

3. Send the HTTP POST request

When the payload structure is ready, create a request by passing your Scraper API’s authentication key:

response = requests.request(
   'POST',
   'https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries',
   auth=('username', 'password'),
   json=payload,
)

Step 4: Export the response

The POST request to the API returns a Requests response object. You can export HTML content from this response to a text file using the following script:

with open('bestbuy_4K_monitor.txt', 'w') as f:
    f.write(response.json()['results'][0]['content'])

Let’s put the entire code together and see the output:

import requests


# Structure a payload.
payload = {
	'source': 'universal_ecommerce',
	'url': 'https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=4k+monitor&_dyncharset=UTF-8&_dynSessConf=&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&af=true&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys',
	'geo_location': 'United States',
}
# Get a response.
response = requests.request(
	'POST',
	'https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries',
	auth=('username', 'password'),
	json=payload,
)
with open('bestbuy_4K_monitor.txt', 'w') as f:
    f.write(response.json()['results'][0]['content'])

The following is a partial view of the output text file:

A text file with HTML content

Conclusion

Best Buy Scraper API is a powerful tool for scraping content from Best Buy’s product pages. It's a warranted solution for easier, faster, more reliable, and highly scalable product data collection.

For more e-commerce targets, check how to scrape data from Walmart and Etsy.

Make sure to get a one-week Best Buy API trial for free. If you have any questions regarding the actions in this guide or want to know more about our Scraper APIs, drop a line via the 24/7 live chat on our home page or send us an email.

About the author

Augustas Pelakauskas

Senior Copywriter

Augustas Pelakauskas is a Senior Copywriter at Oxylabs. Coming from an artistic background, he is deeply invested in various creative ventures - the most recent one being writing. After testing his abilities in the field of freelance journalism, he transitioned to tech content creation. When at ease, he enjoys sunny outdoors and active recreation. As it turns out, his bicycle is his fourth best friend.

All information on Oxylabs Blog is provided on an "as is" basis and for informational purposes only. We make no representation and disclaim all liability with respect to your use of any information contained on Oxylabs Blog or any third-party websites that may be linked therein. Before engaging in scraping activities of any kind you should consult your legal advisors and carefully read the particular website's terms of service or receive a scraping license.

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IN THIS ARTICLE:


  • Overview of the Best Buy page structure

  • Is it legal to scrape Best Buy?

  • The nuances of scraping Best Buy

  • Scraping Best Buy products page

  • Conclusion

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