I discovered a new site recently. I have to admit, among others, I have been one of the ones obsessed with finding the well-sought after Nintendo Wii. Well, there’s a new site out there called iTrackr.com. You pay them $2 for various products (per alert), and they go out and search various stores and send alerts to your cellphone and e-mail when they come available.
I have been obsessed with finding out how they do this, and I have noticed in several forums that others have as well. Well, I present to you the answer. I want you to look at the list of stores they offer notices for: CompUSA, Target, EB Games, GameSpot, and Circuit City. Now, go to those stores’ websites. Search for something on their site. Notice the little “check store availability” link? Bingo. Figure out how to get that link and you can check for store availability yourself on any item in their store.
So I spent some time tonight fishing around Target.com. If you notice, for most of the stores that list store availability, they cleverly don’t offer that option for the Nintendo Wii. You can, however figure out how to read that number by looking at the link for other items that offer the option. I was able to come up with the following URL that will tell you in the source code which stores in your area have the Nintendo Wii in their inventory:
http://www.target.com/gp/store-info/search-results.html/602-9935177-2156646?ie=UTF8&asin=B0009VXBAQ&zipcode=84118&fresh=1
All you need to do now is replace the 84118 with your zipcode, and the asin code with any asin code on the site, and you can get store availability for any item in the store. The above asin code just happens to be for the Nintendo Wii.
To find the availabilities, view the source, and look for the following:
tempData["storeName"] = trim("Sandy South Towne");
tempData["itemAvailability"] = trim("Out Of Stock");
There should be several of them – with any luck, one will say “Available”! As a side-note, you can also do this in the stores by entering the Wii sku for that target on the little red scanners. The above trick, and the scanners are usually right – even if it says they’re in stock and the employees say they aren’t, keep checking back and you will most likely see them on the shelves soon.
Now, I’ve helped you. This means it’s going to be harder for me to find a Wii. I ask in return if you happen to find one using this method that perhaps you could hold one for me so I can buy it for retail price! Donations of found Nintendo Wiis are also graciously accepted (hint, hint).
Stay tuned – I think I’m going to find the URLs for the other stores listed…
