Arbitrage on Amazon: Exploiting the Textbook Trade-ins with Python

Arbitrage on AmazonExploiting the Textbook Trade-ins with Python

@blorenz

Brandon Lorenz

Saturday, July 27, 13

Why?Saturday, July 27, 13

This.


From.


@blorenz

Brandon Lorenz

★ Pythonista of two years

★ Djangonauting since 1.3

★ Web devving since `96★ SSI => Perl => PHP => Python

Hi, friends.

You should follow me [now!] on Twitter.

Why?

High tweet rate of Python relevance!


Observing


Amazon Trade-Ins

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dtextbooks-tradein






Amazon Trade-Ins


Amazon Trade-Ins


Amazon Trade-Ins


Amazon Trade-Ins


Amazon Trade-Ins

- >0if


Amazon Trade-Ins

win()

passelse:

- >0:if


Analyzing


we’re here to help.

Introduction to Tools


Chrome Web Inspector

• Inspect the DOM (Document Object Model)

• Test selectors


requests 1.2.3

What it is:

Simple-to-use HTTP abstraction

How we use it:

Requesting content to parse


pyquery 1.2.4

What it is:

jQuery-like abstraction of lxml

How we use it:

Traversing and extracting content


django 1.6b1

What it is:

Full-featured Python web-framework

How we use it:

Querying and rendering the data


Finding our Entry Point


Exploring the Interface










Looking for Patterns












Looking for PatternsURL Pattern!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/SOME_CHANGING_VALUE/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

The value of interest represents the Amazon product code.

We can programmatically create valid URLs based off the product code.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0385537859/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used






Implementation


Code. Finally.


Code. Finally.

Our data representation


Code. Finally.

Hooray, requests!

(thx kenneth.)


Code. Finally.


Code. Finally.


Code. Finally.


Code. Finally.


Code. Finally.Easy, admin.


there will be problems.

Damnit.


Too slow.


Celery and RabbitMQ


Oops. Data too fast.


MySQL => MongoDB


MySQL => MongoDB


Amazon headfakes.


Huh?


Clever Girl.


Proxified Success!


Used Book Salesman.


Trickiness


Trickiness


Deceit


... More Problems omitted.


what does it look like?

Succeeding


Good deal!


Good deal!


Good deal!


Good deal!


Dashboard to Deals.


• Purchased and processed over $3,085.51 in books.

• Redeemed over $2,870.33 in purchases.

• $100 out-of-pocket initial investment.

• ~3-4 month activity window.

• Maintained and scraped 1.6 million books/day.

The Breakdown


may the deals be with you.

Want the code?


On the GitHub

http://github.com/blorenz/textbook-arbitrage-redux


https://github.com/blorenz/textbook-arbitrage-redux

https://github.com/blorenz/textbook-arbitrage-redux

John Caserta, from The Noun Project

compose, arrange, from The Noun Project

Michael Rowe, from The Noun Project

Brexebrex, from The Noun Project

Image Attribution

Attribute asThe Noun Project


Thanks!!!!Questions???

@blorenz

Brandon Lorenz


Date post:	20-Aug-2015
Category:	Technology
Upload:	michael-brandon-lorenz
View:	1,764 times
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Arbitrage on Amazon: Exploiting the Textbook Trade-ins with Python

Technology