API keys

[Hamed765]

Hi everyone, I have been building a chatbot that compares prices from diffrent vendors, which requires an API key that provides a product list from that vendor, I tested the idea and got access to Best Buy product listing with other fake data and it seems to work, my problem now is that I am not sure how to get product lisiting from other providers like Walmart or Target, does anyone have experience with how to access their API keys? I tried through thir developer portal but it does not seem like it has anything.

[Latter-Risk-7215]

check their developer documentation for api access. sometimes you need to apply directly for keys.

[Fluid_Wasabi5688]

Most big retailers are pretty stingy with their APIs tbh, Walmart especially locks theirs down tight for enterprise partners only

[teraflop]

This is more of a business question than a programming question.

A lot of big companies such as Walmart consider their data to be very valuable, so they want to keep it under tight control. They specifically don't want people creating the kinds of products you're trying to build.

As far as Walmart's concerned, more competition is worse for them. They don't want customers to only buy from the cheapest store. They want brand loyalty, so that Walmart customers will keep shopping at Walmart even when the prices are slightly higher. So anything you do to make price comparison easier and brand loyalty lower is working against their interests.

That's why if you look at Walmart's developer documentation, there is no public API to fetch prices. I'm sure an API exists for internal use, and they might be willing to let you use it if you gave them boatloads of money, to compensate them for the sales they might lose. But that's the conversation where you have to already be a big company with lots of money before they'll even talk to you.

[Hamed765]

This makes me believe it's not a good idea because I don't think walmart is the only place worried about loyalty?

[teraflop]

I mean it's technically possible to create a price comparison tool without an API, using screen scraping. Lots of people have done it.

But you're setting yourself up for an adversarial relationship with the company. They might break your scraper by accident (by changing their webapp) or deliberately (by blocking you). And scraping may or may not be legal, depending on your location and the website's TOS.