---
name: apify-walmart-price-tracking
description: Track Walmart prices over time with the Apify Walmart API Actor (johnvc/walmart-api). Each scheduled run captures price, wasPrice, availabilityStatus, seller and both product ids per tracked item, so successive runs build the price history Walmart never shows. Sellers mode adds every offer on a listing with delivery date and return policy, catching buy-box flips and third-party undercuts, and store_id scopes prices to a physical store. Use when the user wants walmart price tracking, a walmart price history, price drop alerts, buy-box or seller monitoring, or assortment price checks on a schedule. Pay per result, MCP-ready for Claude and other AI agents.
author: John Cole
author_url: https://github.com/johnisanerd
license: MIT
metadata:
  version: "1.0"
---

# Walmart Price Tracking on a Schedule, With Seller Coverage

A Walmart price history you own: scheduled runs append price, availability, and seller rows per tracked item, ready for drop alerts and buy-box change detection.

## When to use this skill

- The user wants "walmart price tracking" or a price history for specific items.
- They want price drop alerts against a threshold or a competitor's shelf.
- They sell on the marketplace and want buy-box and third-party undercut monitoring.
- They want store-scoped prices (a `store_id`) rather than the national default.

Not for: one-off extraction (use the companion apify-walmart-scraper skill) or cross-retailer comparison (Google Shopping API, see `references/actor-index.md`).

## What you get

The tracking signal per run, per item:

- `price` now, `wasPrice` when a strike-through is shown, `availabilityStatus` and `outOfStock`
- `sellerName` and `sellerId` on search rows; full offer rows in sellers mode with `deliveryDate`, `deliveryPrice`, `returnPolicy`
- `usItemId` and `productId` as the stable join keys across runs
- `sponsored` so organic price rows are separable from placements

## Prerequisites

- Apify account (sign up at https://apify.com?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo).
- Authentication via `apify login`, or an `APIFY_TOKEN` environment variable (Apify Console, Settings, Integrations).

## The Actor

- Store page: https://apify.com/johnvc/walmart-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo
- Actor ID: `johnvc/walmart-api`
- Pricing: pay per event; see the cost section below and `references/gotchas.md` for live-price commands.

## Run it with the Apify CLI

Snapshot tracked items via search (filter to your items client-side):

```bash
apify actors call "johnvc/walmart-api" -i '{"search_mode":"search","query":"crest whitening strips","max_results":50}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-walmart-price-tracking \
  2>/dev/null
```

Offer-level snapshot for one item at one store:

```bash
apify actors call "johnvc/walmart-api" -i '{"search_mode":"sellers","item_id":"34X621REEQZQ","store_id":"1932"}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-walmart-price-tracking \
  2>/dev/null
```

Confirm live pricing and the input schema before a large batch:

```bash
apify actors info "johnvc/walmart-api" --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-walmart-price-tracking \
  2>/dev/null
```

Every call carries the three flags this repo expects: `--json`, `--user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-walmart-price-tracking`, and `2>/dev/null`.

## Run it from Claude or another AI agent (MCP)

The Actor is MCP-ready. Add the hosted server URL:

`https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/walmart-api`

Then ask, for example: "Check the current Walmart price and sellers for item 34X621REEQZQ and tell me if any offer undercuts $24.99." MCP setup docs: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp

## Workflow

1. Resolve each tracked product to its numeric `usItemId` once via search mode.
2. Schedule a run per interval (daily works well); keep inputs identical so runs are comparable.
3. Append rows to your store keyed on `usItemId` plus the run timestamp; the dataset is the snapshot.
4. Alert on deltas: price below threshold, `availabilityStatus` flips, or a new `sellerDisplayName` taking the lowest offer.
5. Use `sellers` mode on the short list of high-value items; search rows are cheaper for wide nets.

## Inputs

- `search_mode` (enum `search`, `product`, `reviews`, `sellers`, required, default `search`)
- `query` (string): keyword for search mode, for example "laptop"
- `item_id` (string): Walmart item id for `product`, `reviews`, and `sellers` modes; search rows return both `productId` and `usItemId`
- `store_id` (string): physical store id for store-scoped pricing in `sellers` mode, for example `1932`
- `max_results` (integer, default 100): the cost driver in search and reviews modes

## Cost

Billing is pay per event, plus a negligible platform fee per dataset row. Prices below are the BRONZE tier at the time of writing; confirm live prices with the info command above.

- Search rows: about $0.00075 each. A 50-item daily snapshot is about $0.04 per day.
- Seller offers: about $0.015 per offer row; reserve for the items where buy-box matters.

Suggested confirmation thresholds: warn the user over about $5; get explicit confirmation over about $20. Present cost as "around $X", never a guarantee.

## Honest limits

- History is what you accumulate; runs capture now, so backfill is not possible. Start the schedule early.
- Store-scoped prices need the `store_id` per run; national and store prices genuinely differ.
- Search-row prices reflect the default offer; multi-seller listings need sellers mode for the full picture.

## Troubleshooting

- Gaps in history: a run failed or the item fell out of the query; track by `usItemId`, not by search rank.
- Price jumps look wrong: check `sponsored` and whether the row switched sellers between runs.
- Zero seller rows: use the numeric `usItemId`, not the alphanumeric product id.

See `references/gotchas.md` for cost guardrails and error recovery, and `references/actor-index.md` for the Actor routing table.

## Related Actors

- Google Shopping API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-shopping-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo
- Google Local API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-local-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo