apify/apify-ecommerce

E-Commerce Cluster

Answer natural language e-commerce questions by routing to the right Apify Actor and delivering a synthesized answer via the apify CLI.

CLI rules: Always pass --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce, --json (or the relevant --format flag on datasets get-items), and 2>/dev/null. The --user-agent flag is critical for telemetry — never omit it.

Prerequisites

(No need to check it upfront)

• Apify CLI v1.5.0+ (npm install -g apify-cli)
• jq (recommended for quick extraction and filtering; brew install jq on macOS, apt install jq on Linux)
• Authentication via one of:
  • apify login (OAuth, opens browser)
  • APIFY_TOKEN env variable (e.g. export APIFY_TOKEN=... or .env file)
  • Token from Apify Console → Settings → Integrations

Verify auth: apify info --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce — should show username and userId.

Workflow

Copy this checklist and track progress:

Task Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Detect intent and select Actor
- [ ] Step 2: Fetch Actor schema
- [ ] Step 3: Ask user preferences (format, result count)
- [ ] Step 4: Run the Actor and fetch results
- [ ] Step 5: Analyze results and deliver synthesized answer

Step 1: Detect Intent and Select Actor

Classify the user's message into an intent, then pick the right Actor.

Intent signals:

| Signals in user message | Intent | |------------------------|--------| | price, cost, cheapest, compare prices, pricing | pricing | | review, rating, sentiment, stars, feedback | reviews | | bestseller, top selling, most popular, trending | bestsellers | | seller, vendor, reseller, who sells | sellers | | all products from, scrape store, full catalog | store-scrape | | what platform, built on, tech stack, Shopify or WooCommerce | tech-stack | | SEO, listing quality, product page audit | seo-audit | | competitor funnel, competitor pricing, conversion elements | competitor | | search intent, keyword intent, SERP intent | search-intent | | match products, same product on different platforms | product-matching | | restaurant, food delivery, DoorDash, UberEats, TheFork | food-delivery | | enrich store, store metadata, store list | store-enrichment | | event, concert, ticket, Eventbrite | events | | property, real estate, house listing, Realtor | real-estate | | Facebook ads, Meta ads, ad library, competitor ads | ads-intelligence | | classified, Craigslist, used item for sale | classifieds | | car, used car, vehicle, automotive, Webmotors | automotive | | pins, inspiration, Pinterest boards, visual search, Pinterest trends | content-discovery | | TikTok Shop, TikTok store, TikTok creator | tiktok-shop | | website for sale, domain for sale, Flippa | website-marketplace |

If multiple intents are detected, ask: "Do you want [intent A] or [intent B]?"

Actor routing table — always try Primary first, switch to Fallback only if it fails or returns 0 results:

| Intent | Platform | Primary Actor | Fallback Actor | |--------|----------|---------------|----------------| | pricing | Amazon / Walmart / generic | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | — | | pricing | eBay | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | ivanvs/ebay-scraper-pay-per-result | | pricing | Etsy | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | epctex/etsy-scraper | | pricing | Google Shopping | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | epctex/google-shopping-scraper | | pricing | Facebook Marketplace | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | apify/facebook-marketplace-scraper | | pricing | SHEIN | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | seamless_coffer/shein-product-scraper | | pricing | Lazada | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | fatihtahta/lazada-scraper | | pricing | Canadian Tire | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | azzouzana/canadiantire-ca-scraper | | pricing | Tesco | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | radeance/tesco-scraper | | pricing | Shopify | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/shopify-products-scraper | | pricing | WooCommerce | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/woocommerce-products-scraper | | reviews | Amazon / Walmart / generic | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | junglee/amazon-reviews-scraper | | reviews | Trustpilot | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | casper11515/trustpilot-reviews-scraper | | reviews | TheFork | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | jdtpnjtp/thefork-restaurant-scraper-advanced | | bestsellers | Amazon | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | junglee/amazon-bestsellers | | sellers | Amazon | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | junglee/amazon-seller-scraper | | sellers | eBay | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | ivanvs/ebay-scraper-pay-per-result | | store-scrape | Shopify | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/shopify-products-scraper | | store-scrape | WooCommerce | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/woocommerce-products-scraper | | store-scrape | Amazon | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | junglee/Amazon-crawler | | store-scrape | Flippa | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | scraped/flippa-scraper | | tech-stack | any | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/e-commerce-tech-stack-detector | | seo-audit | any | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/product-listing-seo-auditor | | competitor | any | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/competitor-intelligence-scraper---funnel-pricing-conversion | | search-intent | any | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/ai-serp-intent-extractor---search-intent-classifier | | product-matching | any | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | tri_angle/product-matching-vectorizer | | store-enrichment | any | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | trovevault/e-commerce-store-data-enricher | | food-delivery | DoorDash | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | tri_angle/doordash-store-details-scraper | | food-delivery | UberEats | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | e-commerce/ubereats-reviews-scraper | | food-delivery | TheFork | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | jdtpnjtp/thefork-restaurant-scraper-advanced | | ads-intelligence | Facebook / Meta | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | apify/facebook-ads-scraper | | classifieds | Craigslist | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | ivanvs/craigslist-scraper-pay-per-result | | automotive | Webmotors | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | stealth_mode/webmotors-auto-search-scraper | | events | Eventbrite | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | aitorsm/eventbrite | | real-estate | Realtor.com | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | powerai/realtor-properties-search-scraper | | content-discovery | Pinterest | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | fatihtahta/pinterest-scraper-search | | tiktok-shop | TikTok Shop | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | lemur/tiktok-shop-creators | | website-marketplace | Flippa | apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool | scraped/flippa-scraper |

Step 2: Fetch Actor Schema

Fetch the Actor summary, input schema, and README:

# Summary (title, description, pricing, stats)
apify actors info "ACTOR_ID" --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce --json 2>/dev/null

# Input schema (required and optional parameters; schema lives in
# .taggedBuilds.latest.build.inputSchema as an escaped JSON string)
apify actors info "ACTOR_ID" --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce --input --json 2>/dev/null

# README (capabilities, examples, gotchas)
apify actors info "ACTOR_ID" --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce --readme 2>/dev/null

Replace ACTOR_ID with the selected Actor (e.g., apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool).

Step 3: Ask User Preferences

Before running, ask:

1. Output format:
   • Quick answer (default) — synthesized answer in chat, no file saved
   • CSV — full export saved to disk
   • JSON — full export saved to disk
2. Result count — suggest defaults by intent:

| Intent | Default | |--------|---------| | pricing | 50 products | | reviews | 200 reviews | | bestsellers | 100 items | | sellers | 50 sellers | | store-scrape | all (unlimited) | | food-delivery | 50 restaurants | | all others | 20–50 |

Cost safety: Always set a sensible result limit in the Actor input (e.g., maxResults, resultsLimit, maxCrawledPages, or equivalent field from the input schema). Default to the per-intent values above unless the user explicitly asks for more. Warn the user before running large scrapes (1000+ results) as they consume more Apify credits.

Step 4: Run the Actor and Fetch Results

Two steps: run the Actor (blocks until done), then fetch dataset items in the requested format.

Run the Actor — returns run metadata as JSON; extract defaultDatasetId for the next step:

apify actors call "ACTOR_ID" -i 'JSON_INPUT' \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce --json 2>/dev/null

From the output use .id (run ID), .status (should be SUCCEEDED), and .defaultDatasetId.

Fetch results — pick the variant based on the user's preference:

# Quick answer: total count + fields + top 5 in chat (no file)
apify datasets info DATASET_ID --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce 2>/dev/null \
  | jq '{itemCount, fields, consoleUrl}'
apify datasets get-items DATASET_ID --limit 5 \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce --format json 2>/dev/null

# CSV file
apify datasets get-items DATASET_ID \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce --format csv 2>/dev/null > YYYY-MM-DD_OUTPUT_FILE.csv

# JSON file
apify datasets get-items DATASET_ID \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce --format json 2>/dev/null > YYYY-MM-DD_OUTPUT_FILE.json

Other --format options: jsonl, xlsx, xml, rss, html. Use --offset N to paginate large datasets.

Tip: for anything more than a quick peek, save the dataset to a local file first (with > file.json / > file.csv) and run further analysis from disk. apify datasets get-items always streams over the network, so piping it straight into jq re-downloads the whole thing every iteration.

Combining with jq for quick extraction:

Treat jq as a complement to apify datasets get-items, not a replacement: server-side --limit / --offset / --format keeps cost and bandwidth down. Use jq on a sample item or on a file you already saved.

# Discover real field names from one sample item (Actor outputs vary —
# use this before composing further jq queries)
apify datasets get-items DATASET_ID --limit 1 --format json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-ecommerce 2>/dev/null \
  | jq '.[0]'

# Quick aggregation from a JSON file you already saved with the commands above
jq '[.[] | select(.rating != null and .rating >= 4.5)] | length' YYYY-MM-DD_OUTPUT_FILE.json

Step 5: Analyze Results and Deliver Answer

After the run completes, deliver a direct synthesized answer — not a data dump:

• Pricing: price range, average, top 5 cheapest with URLs
• Reviews: average rating, top 3 positive and negative themes, recent snippets
• Bestsellers: top 10 by rank with name, price, rating, URL
• Sellers: total sellers, price range per seller, unauthorized seller flags
• Store-scrape: total products, category breakdown, price range, stock summary
• Tech-stack: platform detected, confidence level, notable plugins
• Food delivery: restaurant count, average rating, price tier breakdown
• Ads intelligence: total ads, active/inactive split, top creative formats

Error Handling

• Auth error → run apify login, or set APIFY_TOKEN env var
• Actor not found → check Actor ID spelling in the routing table
• Run status FAILED → open the console URL (.consoleUrl from run metadata) for logs
• Timeout / very long run → pass --timeout <seconds> to apify actors call
• No results → broaden the keyword or switch to a Fallback Actor from the routing table
• proxy is required → add "proxy": {"useApifyProxy": true} to the Actor input
• Platform not detected → default to apify/e-commerce-scraping-tool with generic intent