How we collect prices

Each morning our software visits every product page we track at the stores below, and reads the price, the store’s regular price and whether it says the item is in stock. Once a week it also looks through each store’s catalogue for products we don’t have a page for yet. We record a price again only when it changes, which is what the price history is built from.

We last read a store price 2 days ago.

Next to a price, this is when we last read it from the store’s page. Prices can change at any time, so always confirm at the store before you buy.

• The lowest current price at a store in your country, in your currency (CAD in Canada, USD in the US).
• Stores that say an item is out of stock are left out of the lowest price. Stores that don’t say either way are counted as in stock.
• Prices are before tax and shipping. A store that’s cheaper on paper can cost more once shipping is added.
• Only new products. Open-box, returned and blemished units, spare parts and bundles are left out.

We also check some US, UK and European stores, but only ones whose shipping page says they ship to your country. Their prices are converted to your currency at that day’s Bank of Canada exchange rate and marked “≈”, with the store’s own price beside it (“$2,095 USD at a US store”). They’re listed after the stores in your country, and the lowest price comes from them only when no store in your country sells the product. Shipping, duties and taxes on an order from abroad aren’t included, so check them at the store. These prices never count as a deal.

A product is on sale when a store prices it below the regular price that same store shows, and the saving is measured against that regular price. We don’t yet check whether the store ever charged its regular price, so treat a big discount with healthy suspicion. If another store is cheaper without a sale, the product card says so. See today’s deals.

Stores name products in different ways, and the difference between two models can be one letter. A store page is matched to a product automatically only when its barcode or model number matches exactly. Everything else is reviewed by a person before its price is used. When a store sells several sizes or colours on one page, we read the price of the version we list, and skip the page if we can’t tell which one that is.

Our software identifies itself as CafeSetupBot, follows each store’s robots.txt rules and requested delays, visits one page at a time with pauses, and backs off when a store asks it to. We don’t check stores that block automated visits or don’t allow them in their terms. That currently includes Amazon, several large chains and a few coffee stores, so a product may be cheaper somewhere we don’t list.

74 stores, including brands’ own online stores. The number is how many of our products we track there.

Specs come from manufacturers’ websites first, then from retailers’ spec tables. When sources disagree or a page is wrong, we correct the value by hand and keep a note of where the right value came from. If no source states a spec, it shows as “Not listed”. Product photos come from the manufacturers’ own websites, or from a store’s page when the manufacturer’s has none. A product we have no photo for isn’t shown.