# Canon Direct Instock Alert Tool



## brianleighty (Jul 13, 2012)

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.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jul 13, 2012)

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=


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## brianleighty (Jul 13, 2012)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> 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.


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## brianleighty (Jul 13, 2012)

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.


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## brianleighty (Jul 17, 2012)

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.


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## brianleighty (Aug 24, 2012)

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?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 24, 2012)

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.


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## brianleighty (Aug 24, 2012)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> 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.


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## brianleighty (Aug 31, 2012)

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.


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## distant.star (Aug 31, 2012)

.
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.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 31, 2012)

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


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## brianleighty (Aug 31, 2012)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> 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.


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## brianleighty (Sep 11, 2012)

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.


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## JBL (Sep 19, 2012)

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.


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## brianleighty (Sep 25, 2012)

JBL said:


> 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.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 25, 2012)

I missed the restocking of the 70-200mm MK II this morning. They were gone by the time I got up this morning on the West Coast.
There are some other very good lenses that are still in stock.


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## brianleighty (Sep 25, 2012)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I missed the restocking of the 70-200mm MK II this morning. They were gone by the time I got up this morning on the West Coast.
> There are some other very good lenses that are still in stock.


Should be instock now if you act quick.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 25, 2012)

They went out of stock while it was in my cart. Just seconds ago. Bummer!
I'm wondering if the Canon e-mail I received was sent out a few minutes before they actually appeared in the store. I had not considered that.


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## brianleighty (Sep 25, 2012)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> They went out of stock while it was in my cart. Just seconds ago. Bummer!
> I'm wondering if the Canon e-mail I received was sent out a few minutes before they actually appeared in the store. I had not considered that.


Canon's emails are consistently delayed a few minutes past my script. Not sure why though.

Anyways update on canonpricewatch's tracker:

Alright so I setup a bunch of notifications this morning with the canonpricewatch site. It might be a little early to call it but looks like my service is still quicker than theirs. The first one I had setup with both was for the Canon 24-70. I never got an email from canonpricewatch and if you look on the tool it says its been out of stock for 8 hours. However I did get an email from my script. It was instock as of 8:15 EST but was out of stock by the time my script ran again 5 minutes later. My guess is their script didn't check Canon's store during the time it was instock thus no alert.

The second alert I got was for the Canon 70-200 IS ii. I did get an alert from canonpricewatch on this one. However it didn't come until 3 minutes after my script. Right around the time my script sent me an email saying the lens was out of stock again. With as quick as these products are going out of stock, I think I might need to switch to checking more often. Perhaps every 2 minutes maybe.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 25, 2012)

They still show in stock in the store, but you can no longer add to the cart. My cart has one in it, but I can't check out, it gives a no loonger available message.
At the low price, I think some are buying the max number allowed to resell.


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## brianleighty (Sep 25, 2012)

Alright another update, Canonpricewatch beat mine by a minute this time. I'm changing it to check every 2 minutes now. We'll see how well that works now.


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## brianleighty (Sep 25, 2012)

Another update. I've had 3 or 4 alerts come through where my alert is consistently 3 minutes faster than canonpricewatch. Which is considerable since that's about the length of time the products are in stock for. I'm really surprised how often Canon is adding stock to the store. This is a real blow out sale they got going on. Wish I had some more money but the wifey says no


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