Another selenium based project.
This project is kind of “price watchdog”, but across multiple e-commerce websites.
There is a popular price comparison website for the Slovak and Czech markets, which is used by most e-commerce shops. This gave me an idea for another life-hack application.
What if I could:
Is 50% discount a good deal? Not necessarily.
Imagine this scenario:
This can definitely happen, but it's not a real discount!
You need a historical data to detect this kind of dark pattern.
Imagine having access to historical data for a product, allowing you to compare the current price to past prices and determine whether the current price is favorable for you. But how can this be achieved?
You can be greedy.
You can react only after price drops to the lowest value ever. Of course, this is a best case scenario.
However, such a scenario may not occur frequently.
Also it would miss deal like this:
Should be minimal price included then?
Check percentage drop from average price?
Unfortunately, I cannot provide an ideal solution here because I have not found one. All I have are counter-examples. However, I believe that a mathematician or someone from the financial world may be able to develop a more effective solution.
For sake of simplicity, I can use the first scenario, and compare only two prices. Actual vs previous.
If actual price is e.g. 50% lower than previous one, add it to the list.
This serves as “first filter” and it's susceptible to fake discounts and spam.
But I can use my brain as a “second filter”, which can decide if this deal is truly favorable.
If it's not, at least you know which shop uses dark patterns against you.
