ShelfAware
How to Automate Deal Hunting in Canada
How often ShelfAware re-checks each Canadian retailer's clearance on its own, and a ten-minute setup with alerts and the browser extension that replaces checking by hand.
Checking product pages by hand works for two or three items. Past that, you're refreshing tabs on the retailer's schedule instead of your own, and markdowns land whenever they land. ShelfAware already re-checks prices on a schedule. The setup below points that work at the things you actually want.
What gets re-checked without you
These clearance feeds are refreshed automatically, whether anyone is looking or not:
| Clearance feed | How often |
|---|---|
| Walmart | Every 6 hours, separately for each province |
| Canada Computers | Every 12 hours |
| Canadian Tire | Daily, across roughly 500 stores |
| Home Depot | Daily, across roughly 200 stores |
| Best Buy, Sport Chek, IKEA, Costco Last Chance | Daily |
Every price change ShelfAware sees goes into that item's price history, so for anything on those feeds, a chart is already waiting the first time you look it up.
A ten-minute setup
- Write down what you're actually waiting on.Five to ten items is plenty. A long list of maybes produces alerts you'll learn to ignore.
- Search each one and read its chart.Note the lowest price it's sold for and how recently. That tells you what's realistic.
- Set an alert at a price you'd genuinely pay.Below today's price, but not below the all-time low, or it may never fire. Alerts are free and there's no cap on how many you set.
- Install the Chrome extensionfor the shopping you do on retailers' own sites. Open a product page, click the icon, and you get the same price and stock check without copying a link anywhere.
- Use the clearance feed for browsing.When there's no specific item in mind, the deals page is already narrowed to big markdowns, which beats digging through each retailer's own clearance section.
What happens after that
You get an email when one of your items reaches your price. Between those emails, there's nothing to check. If an item you were watching gets a markdown that doesn't reach your number, it shows up on its chart, and you can decide whether to move your target.
Start by searching something you've been checking by hand, or browse today's clearance. The extension walkthrough covers the browser side.